


The Black Jungle

by Spacewriting



Series: The Stories Of The Black Jungle [1]
Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Dismemberment, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hypnosis, Naga, Naga AU, for gordon's hand, jungle au, snake au, snake people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25199158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacewriting/pseuds/Spacewriting
Summary: Gordon was assigned to explore and research a jungle that Black Mesa had been having issues with. Anyone that Black Mesa has sent in there never returned back. So now Gordon is stuck in this jungle, having to survive against the strange wilderness of this unusual Jungle. But little does Gordon know that he's not alone in his endeavor... Just not with the company he hopes for.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Series: The Stories Of The Black Jungle [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842148
Comments: 159
Kudos: 404





	1. A Wild Time

**Author's Note:**

> This used to be a Comic of mine that took too much energy out of me to draw, so I redid the entire story and I'm turning it into a fic, hope yall like this!

The constant downpour of the overhead tropical storm almost muted out the constant sputter of the protected portable generator as it powered the makeshift lights and monitoring system that Gordon had set up in his Black Mesa certified camping tent. The system consisted of a singular small wired box TV that flipped through static to four different night vision cameras that Gordon had installed in different nearby trees to observe the surroundings of the jungle at night while he was protected in this flimsy tent. Gordon sat up inside of his sleeping bag with the monitor resting on the floor of the polyester covered tent. In contrast, a tattered notebook sat in his lap, space scribble notes recording his thoughts and limited observations the man had seen all night. There was nothing to take note of, just the natural vegetation that the unofficial researcher was all too familiar with from the past three hours of viewing nonstop. Maybe a few bugs swarming in cam one, tropical birds nesting up in the lower canopy in cam two, monkeys slumbering in a tree’s canopy in cam three, and frogs croaking in the close distance from cam four, the nearest camera to the campsite. All around, just the same old boring stuff for Gordon, he could have honestly made his own wildlife documentary with all the same crowd of animals he's seen.

Gordon did not know why he even took up this job in the first place. He already had a good position in Black Mesa, being one of the head physicists in many of their projects and experiments. He was at the top of his game during those points of his career, so why did he even choose to even agree to take this job? Did they promise better pay? A promotion? Did he even have a choice? Or was Gordon secretly just so bored of his, now, the previous job that he would just take up the first interesting project that he came across? Whatever the choice could have been for the scientists, he was now immensely regretting that decision, because not only was this job boring, it was almost dangerous. Gordon had already nearly tumbled off of countless cliffs on his way to find a new campsite furring his first few days in the jungle. He had fallen out of at least two giant trees trying to set up those damn cameras. Even had some very close encounters with some of the jungle’s most vicious wildlife, and he’s only been surviving out here for almost three days now. 

What did Black Mesa even want him to do? All they told him was to take notes of what he experiences in the lush forest, collect any samples from “unknown creatures,” and just try and survive. Why did they even need him in the first place?

At least tonight it as raining cats and dogs, so he finally had an excuse not to be outside in the frigid cold night, the insulated tent and overheating generator was keeping him warm enough from the rain alone. Sadly that also limited Gordon to just observing the surroundings through a crappy cube television and having to write down his personal mandatory note-taking quota for the night. Riveting. 

The same green filtered images flashed in front of him as he used a small remote button to flip through the channels of the cameras. Again, nothing, just the same animals in the same places that Gordon had basically memorized by this point. He was just about to make stuff up in his notes so that he would both satisfy himself and future Black Mesa and pass out until morning, hoping tomorrow would bring something more interesting. That was his plan, reacting to switch off the monitor until a long black figure started wrapping around a tree on cam three. Was Gordon just that exhausted that he did not catch it beforehand? It did not matter now; finally, something exciting was happening.

However, something did not sit right with the physicist about that animal. Yes, it looked like one of the local pythons that lived in the jungle, but this one was much longer and thicker than normal pythons. With the addition of a long tail being covered in the noticeable pattern that said constrictors are known for, instead, it was entirely black, or at least from what Gordon could make out from with the poor camera quality. Was this just an invasive species? Or a sort of mutation? Strange. Gordon continued to watch.

The long body of the serpent continued slithering up the tree until it got to where the primates were sleeping, the camera pointed just out of reach so that Gordon could not quite catch a glimpse of the hunter’s head. It waited there for a while, the tail slowly shifting to reposition itself into a striking position, aimed right at a pile of sleeping prey. Within a flash, the camera lagged behind a bit, catching only screenshots of the attack, while the distant cries of a panicking pack of apes filled in the rest of Gordon’s imagination. The beast had landed its strike. This hunt was probably the most excitement Gordon had gotten in such a long time. Gordon likely would have laughed a bit at this predicament if it was not for what horror he saw next.

He expected just to see a snake wrapped around a poor squirming monkey as it squeezed the life out of its body. Instead, he got a full look at what could only come out of fantasy literature, or maybe horror in this case. There stood a human, a whole ass human, clutching two limp primates in both of its claws as it glanced down at the tree tangled tail that was wrapped around a third struggling primate’s neck, crushing its throat under the muscle’s grip, forcing the nimble body to grow limp slowly. Gordon could not tear his eyes away from this horror scene, but it was like watching a car crash pile up, it only got worse. He watched as the beast started shoving the bodies into its mouth, not even chewing, just straight up swallowing the corpses of those dead primates like they were cotton candy animals to it.

What the fucking hell was he witnessing? This cant be real? Can it? Was this what Black Mesa wanted him to find? A human-snake-beast-thing. Fuck Gordon didn’t even know; he was already in too deep.

His heart only sank further as the beast turned toward the camera, its eyes dull and half-lidded as it merely stared at the camera, taking a moment to tilt its head at the camera, processing what it was looking at. This gave a moment for the mortified human to gather as much information as he could about the creature before him with the poor quality of the video feed. The thing was mostly human, from the waist upwards to its head, while from the waist down consisted of that same tail that he saw before. That damn tail, he just couldn’t stop looking at it, it is so long, it seems like it just stretches into the jungle forever, it could easily crush him like a grape if it got wrapped around him. Gordon shivered at that terrible thought as he forced himself to take mental note of the rest of the body. The video quality only made it much more difficult at this point to pinpoint precisely the thing’s torso looked like. Especially when its eyes suddenly snapped open wides, causing the camera to take in the eyes as some sort of glowing duo beacons of light. It looks like the beast figured out what that it was looking right at a camera, only for it to follow the not so well hidden down to the earth floor with its head. The beast knew someone was watching, and that made Gordon’s stomach heart sink to his feet. 

Fuck. Gordon should have hidden the cables better. Now that anomaly was quickly making its way down from the tree and more than likely right for Gordon. He had to think fast, and he had to think now. 

Ripping the power cord of the TV out of one of the generator’s power sockets, he shoved the monitor under his right arm as he fumbled with the tent’s exit zipper, yanking it ferociously as it kept snagging on the fabric around the zipper. After a few panicked vulgarities, he managed to unzip the entrance far enough to slip out and sprint off in a random direction with the monitor, the cables connecting the cameras not far behind him. Just hurling his body through the thunderstorm as fast as he can through the dense forest so that he could throw the cables far out from his campsite so the beast could not track him back easily. Once the TV was properly thrown, Gordon hauled his ass back to camp, dodging trees and snagging branches on his way there. 

Once the tent was in view, Gordon basically dove into the tent, nearly knocking it over with his now wet body, squirming a bit as he rushed to zip the tent close… Forgetting to lock the zipper down manually.

He fell back down on his sleeping bag as he switched the generator off, the putter of the motor slowing to an eerie silence. Gordon dared not speak a word as the lantern that had been powered by the generator in his tent had slowly succumbed to the darkness of the jungle. Everything was still, the air, the makeshift shelter, even Gordon laid dead as a doornail on top of the sleeping bag he was once relaxing in not too long ago. The only sound is that of the constant downpour of raindrops everywhere around the camp. 

It took a good while for Gordon’s body to relax again after the sudden wave of panic. It looks like his quick distraction worked, that beast was gone, it did not track him, thank fuck. Could that monster have been a figment of Gordon’s crippling paranoia? Knowing him and his current mental state, more than likely. With an exhale from his mouth, Gordon started to shift his body to get some sleep for the night.

That was his plan, once again, until his body froze on sight at the sound of the tent zipper being slowly reopened.

The beast had found him. 

He must have lead the damn thing back when it saw him running, or heard him running. Gordon internally scorned himself as the gush of cold rain air blew right into his safe space. His eyes shut tight as the breeze blew ontop of him, body shivering slightly as well. Maybe if he acts dead, then the beast will leave him alone. Yeah, just, lie still, keep his breathing low, and just act like a corpse, then the thing will leave him alone.

Or that’s what he would have hoped; instead, he felt his sleeping space slowly get more cramped as another body slid in right next to him. Next to slide in was a long, smooth, scaly muscle that rubbed against Gordon’s legs and torso, pretty sure it was starting to wrap around him by now.

Don’t panic, Gordon, don’t panic. This is fine, your safe, he doesn’t know your alive, it’s fine.

“nice place you got here bro.”

Oh, fuck, it can talk. And that monochrome voice was not helping Gordon’s fear of this thing at all. So he kept his eyes sealed shut. What you can’t see can’t hurt you, right?

An annoyed growl came from the beast in front of the human, a clawed hand reaching down to engulf the top of the human’s head, brushing any stray hairs away from his eyes, and forcing Gordon’s head up to supposedly look up at the beast.

“bro, i know your alive. stop playing dead. come on. not funny didn’t laugh.”

Whelp. His facade was broken in just a few words, or well, seconds. So the human begrudgingly opened his eyes and was met with quite a sight. 

Only a few inches away from his face was a surprisingly human-looking face staring back at him. Their eyes were utterly golden yellow with slit-like pupils that stared right back into Gordon’s brown eyes. There was a shadow cast around their eyes from a dented and almost rusty helmet covering their had, making it challenging to differentiate other physical features around his eyes. However, he did notice two yellow fangs poking out of the snake’s lips, and an extra two somewhat more massive fangs poking out right behind the first two. Even a few black and deep blue scales lined his jawline, and also the bottom of the shadow.

His eyes soon fell to the torso of the creature, gazing over the soaking wet muscular body of a slim built snake. Scales scattered around his body mainly gathered around their shoulders, elbows, and hips where his human form was engulfed in a snake’s tail, changing into a rain glistening black scales. The underbelly of the beast being dark grey that continued even beyond where the black of the tail stopped—continuing to spread across the human part of the chest, only to stop right at the collar bone.

“liking what your seeing?” The snake commented, a slimy smile creeping across its face as Gordon noticed how long he was staring at the giant creature’s physical form. Shaking his head, he glared back up to the beast, about to retort something along the lines of “Wait- what?” but a long tail started to coil around Gordon’s body.

“well, if you really like Benrey boy’s body so much, why not become a part of it?”

That line brought back Gordon’s fight or flight instinct at full force. He was about to be eaten by a giant snake human monster. He couldn’t run away; the damn heavy tail was keeping him pinned down. So that only left fighting as an option, all of his survival tools were tucked away in his travel backpack on the other side of the beast. That only left his one free fist left to defend himself, and that’s what he was going to use.

Bringing his hand up quickly, balling it up into a white-knuckled fist, he connected it to the snake’s face. That caused the snake to retract in surprise, his tail unraveling from Gordon’s body as he retreated outside the dry tent and into the drenched outdoors, holding his face where Gordon had punched him.

“what the hell, man?! you punched me!”

“You were going to fucking eat me, you asshole!” Gordon shouted back, trying to catch his breath as he pushed himself to get into a position where he could glare at the snake from inside the safety of his tent. His fight or flight instinct was slowly fading away as it was now overtaken by pure annoyance and rage. 

“no i wasn’t bro! i was just messing with you!”

“That’s not how you joke around with people you just meet freak!”

“oh, you’re calling me a freak now, huh fuck boy?” Benrey snarled, dagger-like teeth bared as his previously monotone expression contorting into anger as he slowly slithered back towards the tent. Was he always that big? Just towing over the tent like that?

Uh oh, Maybe Gordon used the wrong set of words there, must have hit a soft spot.

“i was trying to be nice to you, just joke around with you. but now you act like i’m a freak of nature. not cool, bro.” Benrey growled, bending down to glare at Gordon. “if you want me to be bad, i’ll be baaaad.”

Yep, Gordon has really fucked up now. Pissing off a giant snake man that could crush you just like a bug, not the best decision on Gordon’s half. So Gordon haphazardly reached for the bag, ready to pull out the hunting knife and attempt to protect himself. If he was going out like this, he might as well go out swinging.  
Benrey was about to make his move on Gordon again if it wasn’t for this sudden echoing horn blast that rippled through the air, muting out the rainfall. The horn blast got Benrey to stop right in his tracks, his posture going straight and stiff as his head whipped towards the source of the sound. He stayed like that for a good few seconds before a second blast rippled through the jungle. His attention returned to Gordon, his wide eyes returning to half-lidded ones as he glanced back at Gordon like he didn’t just threaten to hurt him before slithering off into the deep jungle again.

Gordon could only sit in his open tent, brandishing a knife, and just asking himself, “What the fuck just happened?” and “What the hell was that horn?”

It took him a while, trying to break out of his stunned silence while trying to calm himself down from the adrenaline rush he had just given himself. Leaning forward to zip the tent back up before he plopped back down on top of the wet sleeping bag he now has underneath him.

It looks like his mission just got a lot more exiting now.


	2. The Deal

Gordon’s horrid insomnia could not have been any more helpful to him than now. The super close call he just experienced with that snake-man thing made getting any sort of healthy sleep extremely difficult for him tonight. Every subtle sound from this coastal rainforest set Gordon’s sleep meeter back to the start. From the lightest rustle of leaves that the wind brushing against the trees to the periodic clashing of thunder that threatened to blast Gordon’s eardrums from the sheer volume alone.

The sounds were not the only factor contributing to the human’s lacking sleep; his mind was spewing out constant thoughts and questions at sickening speed. What the hell was that monster? Was it human? A snake? Something else entirely? It had to be something else, no other living being on this godforsaken planet was like whatever that was. That had to be the “mysterious power” that Black Messa wanted him to research. Why else would Black Mesa send him down into this jungle with limited supplies? 

Did they even expect Gordon to last this long in the first place? The handheld radio that Gordon was carrying around was buzzing with nothing but static from a lack of signal. He was basically carrying around dead weight with him by this point. Were they even listing in on any of his note-taking or his nonsensical conversations Gordon has with himself? Did they even know where he was? Where were his coordinates anyways? Gordon was not keeping track of his placement at all, the map was no use to him at this rate, even with specific landmarks he’s jotted down in his notes to keep track of where he was, he still felt lost somehow. Maybe that was how the jungle worked, getting any unprepared explorer turned around and lost within its green maze, just to either perish by starvation, falling off a high tree or cliff or in Gordon’s case, getting murdered by a giant snake human hybrid.

What was that serpent going to do to him anyway? Why did it stop at the sound of that horn? Clearly, the scaly bastard would have easily just crushed up Gordon’s body like a cheap stress toy and gotten itself a fair-sized snack, better than those Spider monkeys it picked earlier. That thought made Gordon’s body shudder, being food to some sort of cryptid creature with nothing to indicate that he would be missing after only about a few days of his mission starting. Just another missing researcher to add to the tally for Black Mesa and fuck knows how many more after him.

After what felt like hours with his paranoia dumping all his panic onto him, his brain had started to shut down finally. His body going slack as his eyes that had remained at a hazy half-lidded soon slid down to shut his eyes. His mind had enough with the constant worrying over what could have happened and just wanted to shut down for what remained of the night.

The last question that left Gordon’s fleeting consciousness was questioning what that horn blast was before his consciousness had finally given way to much-needed sleep.

_____________________________________________

Chirping and squawking of the tropical birds was the first indication that Gordon was starting to come to after his possibly three-hour sleep. Soft drips and drops of the leftover rainstorm were the next to be noticed as the morning haze drifted from the human’s eyes. Gordon’s brain was thick with haze from the fitful slumber as he pushed his uncooperative body up into a sitting position. Realizing that he had, in fact, slept on top of his sleeping bag and not inside it like an average person.

The haze fogged his memory from last night’s research, so when he glanced around for the missing surveillance equipment, he wondered where the hell the screen had gone. Maybe his notes would tell him what happened a few hours ago.

His hand fumbled with the splayed open, messy notebook as the pages flipped over and over before Gordon found the most recent entry to the journal, written just a few hours ago. The single page did not say anything besides his usual complaints about the same nightlife that he had seen nights before. However, what did strike Gordon as strange was that there was not an ending statement like the rest of the entries, it ended at the subject of a black snake hunting spider monkeys.

Wait, black snake… monkeys.

That fucking snake beast. Gordon remembers now.

The sleep-deprived fog that had clouded his memory was quickly blown away at the mention of that black snake. He remembered his close encounter with that creature last night and how close he was to becoming snake chow. There was not a doubt in his mind that the snake would be coming back for him any time by now; it knew where his camp, he could easily be found like that.

He needed to move, immediately, if he wanted to avoid seeing that serpent again. So that is what Gordon did, scrambling to flop off his sleeping bag to shove what little he could into it so it could be rolled and strapped onto his survival bag. It was sloppy for sure, barely being held together by the straps that Gordon haphazardly attached to the folded sack to keep it secure, but at least it was enough to keep it steady in his panicked state.

Gordon had crawled out of his tent, nearly slipping and falling back into the muddy earth below him before cathing himself with his other leg. He kept slipping and sliding as he struggled to pull up the sunken tent picks with his shaking bare hands. He had hammed them so far into the ground so that the shelter would not just up and fly away during the thunderstorm that rained like a flood not too long ago. Luckily once the picks would pop up and out of the ground with a few hefty tugs, and the slicked earth helped with that as well. Once all of the anchors were adequately out of the land, they automatically were yanked right back to the tent, folding itself up as if some sort ghost was folding it. The automated fonding had ceased once the tent was neatly packaged into a right-sized package, the only good and useful thing that Black Mesa had sent with him, a self collapsing tent. Especially in dire times like now when he needed to relocate to another campsite immediately.

So once Gordon had shoved the small tent into his small, cluttered bag and slung it over his shoulder after he had taken out his hunting knife just in case the monster would come back for seconds. He booked it away from his old camping site, catching a glimpse of the new either missing or destroyed cameras he had spent so long setting up. The man wondered if the Snake had damaged them in a fit of rage, or if Gordon had destroyed them with his last-ditch effort to hide last light. It did not matter right now; all he needed to do was run and get far away from that site in desperate hopes that the damn monster did not follow him.

Which sadly, for Gordon, a pair of golden scleras followed Gordon from high up in one of the jungle trees, keeping themselves hidden and just far away that the panicking human would not notice them.

_____________________________________

It felt like hours since Gordon had to uproot himself and start to find a new camping site. All the possible places he would have chosen were either ruined by the rainstorm with fallen trees and uneven, muddy terrain or had already been taken by other wildlife, like caves that housed endangered tigers, lone wolves, or giant bears. Wait, were bears and wolves not even native to jungles? Or did Gordon just fall asleep during biology class? Once again, it did not matter to the now tiring Gordon. All he wanted to do was find another homing spot and try and recapture some of that lost sleep he had been dreaming of getting once again.

So he kept walking, his focus switching on making marks on different parts of his beaten up map from where he’s been to the off-path trail before him. His mumbling came back to him as he softly cursed that fucking snake for ruining everything and making him go on this long hellish journey once again. Gordon wasn’t so much afraid of the beast now; he was furious with it instead. Anger that wanted to flow over and gut the damn animal for causing him such grief and fear, but that may just be his sleep deprivation talking. God, he already hatted this mission with a burning passion.

His mumbling would soon be silenced as Gordon felt something hard tap his shoulder, like someone, or something was trying to get his attention. Gordon’s body froze up, every muscle and fiber in his body tensing up like he was just turned to stone by Medusa herself. He thought he was alone in here; no one else was here besides him, right? Except for the beast, did it find him already? Guess he has to turn around and meet his fate, huh? 

Brandishing the only sharp weapon Gordon had on him, the survival knife, Gordon broke himself free from his stone body curse and slowly turned himself around to face an empty jungle. Nothing but the trunks of trees and the low planted vegetation of the dark damp soil ground.  
Gordon simply blinked at the empty sight before him. Was he just that sleep-deprived that he was starting to hallucinate invisible forces touching him? He had to be, and mixing that with his paranoia was not a good combination to be having right around now. So after just staring at the emptiness of his traveled path for a few long minutes, Gordon turned himself back around to continue his journey. Only to be met with an upside-down, dangling, scaled snake human, and not just any snake human, that same snake human that had tried to eat him before, helmet and everything.

“sup hu-” was all the snake could get in before said human let out an ear-piercing scream, making all the birds in nearby canopies take off like rockets into the sky from the sheer volume of the yell. Gordon fell back on his arse in surprise, dropping both his knife and map as he scurried back frantically away from the descending snake monster.

“woah, bro. don’t needa, uh, yell like that, ain’t gonna eat your scrawny ass”

“Y-Yeah bull shit! You were just about to eat me last night!” Gordon shouted, ignoring that the snake had just called him skinny.

“...i wha?”

“Don’t play fucking dumb right now! I’m not fucking falling for it! You tried to eat me! You were about to kill me!!”

“no bro, i told ya i was jokin bro. uhhh. you taking this way too far.”

“Too far?? TO FUCKING FAR?!” Gordon’s voice had cracked right there, his whole body shaking from both the previous anger he had felt for the serpent and now with a slow rising fear that was bubbling up in his chest. “HOW THE FUCK AM I TAKING THIS TOO FAR WHEN YOUR SCALEY FUCKING ASS IS GOING TO FUCKING EAT ME!!” Tears slowly started to form at the corners of his eyes, that fear knowing full well that he was about to die. He couldn’t outrun his demise, what was he even thinking? He was lost in a maze that he had no way of getting back out of, what made him think he could survive this serpentine minotaur maze? 

“SO WHY NOT GET THAT SHIT OVER WITH?! JUST FUCKING DROP THE ACT AND JUST kill…. Me…” Gordon’s voice trailed off as he observed the tail of the beast seemingly grow in length. Coil after coil flowed around the human half like pattern changing streamers floating softly in the wind, creating pathways for Gordon’s eyes to follow as they mapped out different shapes and forms. There were even these strange blue, glowing balls that were appearing seemingly out of nowhere from Gordon’s perspective, but only adding onto the mesmerizing performance in front of him by circling around the two, even adding new and glowing shapes to the tail.

It all-encompassed the human form of the beast, so only it’s spiraling eyes could be the focal point of this whole dance. Gordon’s vision slowly tunneled into those eyes, the long muscles of scales only drawing his vision more as they blacked out the remaining natural light of the jungle and replaced it with those captivating hue changing eyes. Gordon’s body was already starting to ease up, the stone hard tension that had refused to leave his body was breaking down into a more relaxed state without ever having to be physically touched. He tried to move his body, but even that wasn’t working, he had become nearly numb. Yet his mind that was screaming at him to panic and run just a moment ago was gradually starting to empty all those thoughts of possible danger out of his head, leaving nothing but a void in there. This would worry him, right? But he was not. How could he with all these pretty colors and sounds?

What replaced that emptiness was not just the image of the vastly spiraling scales, glowing orbs, and captivating eyes in front of him, but the voice that accompanied it all. All outside noises were either silenced or just a muffled background sound to the crystal clear voice the snake had. It was nowhere near as annoying or monotone as the snake’s usual voice, but it had this sort of echo to it, may just be from bouncing around in Gordon’s free mind. The sound was low, calming even like this was some therapist talking to him about his problems, but any issues he just had been seemingly non-existent by this point. It was just him and the snake, nothing else existed but them.

“Calm Down. Please.” Was what the voice spoke to Gordon’s mind.

“There. There are no predetermined deaths here. Only calm. And that’s what you need to be human. Calm. Please. Please calm.”

It was almost like on command, Gordon’s body had become completely relaxed, his posture had gone slack, and his strength nearly gone from him. If it were not for a section of the tail being propped up behind him, he would have fallen backward right into the mud. Now the spectacle was, and Gordon could slowly start to get his bearings again, this time with a clear head that was free from panic.

“W-wh-how did you do that?” The human asked once tension slowly built back up in his muscles enough so that he could shakily stand back up on his own two feet.

“that’s the Black Jungle Sweet Dance.” the monotone voice had returned to the snake, retracting its tail from behind Gordon, now looking like the same length from before he started his “dance.”

“i use it to calm people down.”

“W-...well, it seemed to work?”

“yeah, it always does. just no one is alive by the end of it. that makes it the Death Dance.”  
“...Well, I’m glad that you didn’t use that Death Dance on me then.” Gordon retorted, glancing around for his missing knife and map. Where did they fall-?

“looking for these human man?” The snake answered, holding the map in one claw and the knife in the other. “you really don’t know your way around here, huh? Need this uhhh shit paper to tell you where to go, huh? and this weak ass sharp claw to protect yourself? Wow, you, you really are weak huh?”

That mocking only made Gordon angry again, the calm now fading away as he rushed up to the giant snake to try and grab his two essentials back. Sadly that was in vain for the smaller human since the serpent only raised itself off the ground further just to dangle the treasures just bearly out of reach for the explorer.

“Hey! Give those back, you fucking asshole!” Gordon shouted, jumping up and down for the items like a toddler trying to grab a toy off a much taller shelf. 

The snake only found it funny how the human was attempting to try and get their trinkets back, so he only raised himself further off the ground out of spite for the poor human.

“only if you ask nicely.”

“...So you want me to beg?”

“Yes.”

“...Un - fucking - beliveable, Gordon groaned before getting a, hopefully, not so idiotic idea.

Backing up just a bit, Gordon lined himself up in front of the noodle man again, confusing it for a second before running full speed at it to just throw himself right onto it. His original aim was to knock them over and grab his map and knife back, but seeing how it only made the snake bobble back and forth like a bobblehead, he chose to try and climb the scaly stalk and get his stuff back.

However, the snake man was prepared for this, slightly, and had outspread their arm’s far enough so that Gordon could not easily snag his item back. While the end of his tail quickly wrapped around Gordon’s waist and managed to pull the clinging man off of them. 

Gordon, at this point, was just done with this whole situation and just limply dangled there in the tail as the snake shoved both iron tooth and map in one claw as he glared at the helpless human.

“okay human ma-”

“Gordon Freeman. Just- Just call me Gordon.”

“... okay Gorman, you’ve made your point. i’ll let you have your shit back. but only if you let me come with you.”

“If I what?”

“let me come with you Gorman. it’s boring as fuck around here, and, uhh, you might run into some big bad that your shitty claws won’t protect you from. you’re going to need a, uhhhh, Guardian to help your weak ass out.”

Gordon paused, looking down at the ground in thought. Did this snake just offer him protection for entertainment? Did they just not joke about eating him not too long ago? This whole situation was something right out of a fantasy book. 

Honestly, though, what else is there to lose? He was lost no matter what, and the serpent knew this jungle more about it than a brand new human. What else was there to lose?

“Alright, then.”

“woah, wait really? no,no uhhhh. webs attached bro?”

“Nope, none of that shit,” Gordon replied to the surprised snake like he was not expecting him to agree to the terms of service for this agreement.

So he held out his hand in a sort of final agreement shake gesture.

“So we agree to this? I get my shit back from you, and I let you come with me...Uh…”

“Benrey.” The snake answered, grabbing the human’s much smaller hand with his larger-scaled one and sealed the deal with a shake before letting go.

“Okay. So, Benrey. Can I have my shit back or-” Gordon asked right before being dropped unceremoniously on the ground by the giant Benrey, with both map and knife following right after him.

Did he already regret this deal? Yes

Was he going to take it back? Absolutely fucking not.


	3. An Eventful Evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by a fan fic of this fic by the name of Black Jungle Remixed by mr_henrey_man!!! Please go check their story out!!! Its amazing!!!  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432342/chapters/61680328

Why did Gordon agree to this? Why did he decide to let a giant snake-human hybrid tag along with him? Probably because it was either let him tag along or have his mission cut short by being snake chow. This was perhaps the better option of the two in Gordon’s opinion.

Gordon continued to maneuver his way around the low hanging branches and vegetation that enveloped the jungle floor, jumping over protruding roots and ducking under entangled tree branches. Exploring alone was already a work out for the human, not to mention having to lug around his entire house in an already straining backpack. Even his body was starting to ache and wail in prolonged pain as he forced himself over a rather sizeable wooded hill, his body was not used to this sort of exercise for sure.

So when Gordon would glance over to the snake that was sliding and slipping in between the very same organic obstacles like it was just another afternoon stroll for him, Gordon could not help but feel a slight bit of jealousy bubble up in his chest. That jealousy would soon bubble over into anger as Benrey started to be a bit of a showoff, speeding past the struggling Gordon to glance back and make snide remarks like “comin’ yet?” or “wow, slow man human here. can’t even keep up. gonna lose the race, bro.” To even effortlessly scaling the towering trees just to let his tail hang and snag Gordon to dangle him just high enough so that he could not progress further before dropping him once he got the response he wanted.

Fuck how he hated this. At first, Gordon would be ignoring the rude snake and continue to explore and climb, letting his silence do the talking for him. Then when Benrey started to get physical with his taunts, that’s when he began to get vulgar—cussing out the serpentine, retorting back with his own half-assed insults, to simply just swatting away any incoming tails that tried to pick him up.

This whole song and dance continued for some time, Benrey makes a jab at Gordon, Gordon tries to jab back, and most of the time ultimately fails. 

“Dude! Just leave me fucking alone!” Gordon shouted, grabbing an incoming tail snag and yanking it downwards, hard. 

The tug surprisingly made the tree-high snake slip a bit, part of his tail pooling slightly next to Gordon as his human half clawed himself an anchor point by digging his claws into the thick branch it was laying on before pulling him back up to the branch.

“bro, come on, i’m only messin with you. and you know i’m, i’m not going to leave you, right? we made a deal. plus you might slip up buddy, and no one’s gonna be around to help you.”

“Well, maybe I don’t NEED any help? I’ve been doing fine so far, no help from you-” Gordon barks, pulling out his map so that he had something to look at besides the giant descending beast behind him while continued to walk forward, past some dense vegetation.

“And the deal was that you would just follow me, not bug the shit out of me. So can you just be quiet for two whole sec-” Gordon was either cut off the the the sudden cold water underneath his foot engulfing his entire right leg, or the jolt backward from being yanked by massive claws and landing arse first on solid ground. 

Gordon was about to scream at Benrey again for manhandling him, until he heard the soft sound of rushing water, causing him to glance slowly up from his map and to the flowing trench river ahead of him. He would have just fallen into that if he had continued to argue further with Benrey, and with him also saving him from falling in as well.

His stubbornness refused to let him acknowledge the fact that the snake that was annoying him about being there to save him from falling face-first into a possibly leech-infested river. So he simply just tried to shake himself away from Benrey’s grip when he stood back up on his own two feet.

“your welcome.” Benrey welcomed before letting go of the smaller Gordon to let him stand back up on his own without a simple thank you.

There was a bit of hesitation from Gordon; he remembered that the bodies of water here were infested with countless numbers of leeches. The remembrance of his last interaction with those parasites sent an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. Having to pluck one of the many black sludges after another off his ankles and calves when he had foolishly crossed another river with no protection. The endless spilling holes of his bloodied swiss cheese legs that had soaked through the last of his bandages in his well supplied first-aid kit. That was not something that Gordon wanted to go through ever again. So Gordon started to glance around the edges of the flowing river, the water is too murky for Freeman to spot any bottom or any of those horrid leeches, besides a few blips of black dots at the surface. The lumbering trees that hung far over the top of the small river provided no such help in crossing. There were no vines to climb across, no dying trees to knock over for a makeshift bridge, nothing to help at all.

Gordon was deciding on just walking down the banks of the river until he would stumble upon a clear opening to cross, or the end of the river. That was until he caught sight of the snake slowly slipping himself into the infested water like it was some sort of swimming pool. The water was only lapping up to the edge of his human torso, where the tail scales off into the more human part of the beast.

“B-Benrey!? The fuck are you doing?! There’s-There’s leeches and shit in there, man!” Gordon screamed, fumbling to grab a part of Benrey’s tail to try and pull him out again, only to be met with a handful of brown earth as the tail slipped out of his grasp.

“Gorman, it’s fine. the. uhhhhhh. blood sacks can’t get through my tail. weak. weak ass fangs, can’t do shit.” Benrey replied, staring blankly back at the dry human as a cloud of black formed around his waist. He even pulled up his black sludge covered tail to prove it, emerging from the water like an infected animal, covered in dangling scrawny leeches that popped off after only a few seconds of being out of their watery habitat. No blood or holes were noticeable on the heavily scaled tail, just a sleek black flesh tube that splashed back into the water, flinging water, and a couple of loose leeches onto the annoyed human.

“Don’t fling them on me, dude!”

“Does uhhhh, human need a lift across? afraid of blood sacks sucking your toes? ”

“Wha- No, no, I, don’t. I’m fine. I can find my own way around this, thanks.” Gordon scoffed, turning to find his own path down the edge of the river, refusing to let some overgrown snake get the satisfaction of “helping” him across something so mundane to them, like a river. So he continued on the selected path, ignoring the obviously stalking serpent that was swimming right beside him in that very same river he was avoiding. Benrey did not even seem to be bothered by the chilly water around his waist, merely keeping his human half safely above the continually shifting cloud of bloodsuckers that pooled around him. He tried to shake off the chilling feeling of being observed while he ventured, those same damn golden eyes were staring two holes into the sides of his head. 

“uhhh, you sure, bro? your gonna fall again, you know? there’s no end to this river. just nothing, bro.”

“Of course, there is! There’s always some end to any river or shit like this. Or at least some overpass of some sort.”

“bro, there isn’t. trust me; i basically live here. uhhh i, i know my way around here, like it’s my home.”

The explorer pinched the bridge of his nose in simmering annoyance, his stubbornness refusing to let himself listen to valid reason in this scenario. “Well, there has to be. How else is the river, like, flowing like this?”

“uhhhhh, magic bro.”

That statement made the scientist chuckle slightly; the funny thing was is that he was so close to believing him. It would explain the pure absurdity of Benrey’s existence alone. Still, everything else, Gordon thought that there had to be some scientific reasoning behind it, he was a physicist after all coming right from MIT, so magic was right out the window for him.

“Yeah. Alright, man, whatever you say.” Gordon breathlessly retorted, stepping over some breaching tree roots before continuing to venture forward on his new personal journey to find a way over the river, so that he did not have to rely on the snake for crossing this damn river.

_____________________________________________

There were a few near wipeouts for Gordon as he balanced himself along the bank of the now still river, some resulting from Gordon slipping on a muddy incline, tripping over a thick hidden root, or just not watching where he was stepping. Every slip got some sort of insult from the swimming snake, who had currently fully submerged his body in the warming water, the black cloud that had created a kind of skirt around his waist had disappeared entirely by now. Everything from the usual insulting of his “weak ass” human abilities, to teasing how nice it was in the water and that he should join him, all of which were seemingly ignored as Gordon marched onwards.

His mind tried to push the teases out of his ears as he focused on a more pressing issue in his mind. How long had he been walking? The water was still the same murky opaqueness that it’s always had, but the constant rush of water had seemingly stopped and left the river to be still, besides the ripples bouncing off Benrey’s swishing tail. It looked like he made process, and at the same time, he had not moved even an inch from where he started. Was he even getting anywhere?

That thought process was cut short by yet another slip-up, this time his foot had stepped on a muddy incline, making him slip further down the basin that he would have wished. Luckily he was able to snag the corner of the small cliff before falling in entirely to the water, only his feet and knees getting soaked. Fuck, this was NOT his day, was it? Gordon started to crawl his body back up onto damp land, the backpack on his back, making it all that much more complicated than it needs to be. His torso was already getting stained by the wet earth underneath him before he felt two clawed hands grab his waist, his body freezing up as he felt himself get yanked backward and towards the very water he refused to be dragged into. Gordon’s fingers anchored himself into what was left of the dirt in his reach as the being behind him started to pull more. 

“oh come on bro, the, the water ain’t gonna melt you, bro. you ain’t gonna die.” Benrey joked, pulling harder on Gordon as he is grip tightened further onto the last shreds of earth that were being torn away from his grasp, leaving small trenched as Gordon’s fingers were ripped across the ground.

“Benrey, stop you fucking dick!” Gordon screamed, his legs rapidly kicking at the serpent in vain to try and shake the slowly crushing grip of Benrey’s claws fueled his frenzied attack, even if they were weak to the amused snake.

Benrey only gave a loud cackle as he gave one last tug, the force of the force stripped Gordon’s hands of the last shreds of land, his world going in slow motion as the crash of cold water swallowed his body whole, leaving him to start to sink to the river bottom when the claws left his waist. All those childhood lessons on swimming suddenly came flooding back into his brain as he began to swim to the surface, his head breaching the surface was he sputtered for air. Once the fresh air of the jungle had filled his lungs, he began to turn towards the towering figure behind him, having to kick and punch continually to keep himself afloat on to glare up at the beast.

“see, it ain’t that bad, bro.”

“Yes, it is! All of my shit and I are now soaking wet!”

Benrey scoffed, rolling his eyes a bit at the upset human. “oh come on, man, you don’t even need that shit. uhhhh lazy ass human with cheap human toys.”

“They aren’t toys, you animal!” Gordon retorted, splashing some water in Berney’s face, that seemed to contort with a slightly offended look. The human, however, had no time to rethink his words, already kicking and paddling his way to the other side of the shore.

Surprisingly Benrey did not try and mess with Gordon again, possibly being from that very slightly offensive bark Gordon made at him. So he simply followed Godon back to the shore of the river bank.

The physicist dragged his now drenched body onto land, taking time to release his sopping wet hair from his ponytail and wring as much river water as he could out before messily tying it back into a bun. He next checked his legs when he pulled up his pants leg, still wary about the thought of leeches attaching back onto his skin, which to his surprised relife, were bare or any of those bloodsuckers. The glasses he miraculously still had on his face were also checked for any more cracks and damage before slipping them back onto his face. For his clothes and belongings, they would have to be dealt with once he manages to find a new camping spot.

The snake, on the other hand, had his own drying ritual that consisted of pulling his drenched body next to Gordon, who barely had any time to react before he shook his entire body like a wet dog, splattering Gordon in a gentle shower of fresh river water on his person.

Now Gordon would have barked further at the snake, but at this point, he just wanted to find the next rest stop and just pass out for the night, or even next few days at this point. He hated it here already, and the giant tag along snake man was not making this any easier for him.

So after he resituated the heavier drenched bag on his back without another word, and continued moving with Benrey following right behind him, his tail shifting through the underbrush of the vegetation throughout the dense forest.

It would be a long walk until the next checkpoint, and Gordon was not ready for another venture with the giant snake.

______________________________________________

The last bits of sun rays passed over the densely covered treetops of the dark jungle that Gordon and Benrey have been trudging through for the previous few hours of daylight. Gordon’s camp sack had drenched his back thoroughly, leaving a colossal cold spot on his back, making him shiver here and there every so often. The slowly chilling temperatures of the falling night were not helping his case what so ever here, only making him more cold and irritable.

Luckily there would still be just enough of that dim natural light to illuminate a very conveniently vine-covered cave that had come into view right as Gordon pushed some palm plants out of his path. Now caves were something that Gordon would not even take a chance of setting up camp in, especially during the more scorching times of the summer months. But since he was pretty sure that his equipment was still damp or drenched in murky river water, and he did not think that his body would be willing to put up with anything else besides just dropping his sack and just dropping dead with sleep again. So after some squishy fishing around in his sack, he managed to pull out a still functioning flashlight and flicked it on to peer inside his new temporary shelter. There was not anything really of note here, just a regular-sized cave, bumpy, rocky walls, a rough rolling floor, and a spikey damp ceiling. It was not his usual human-made tent, but it would do for tonight.

Gordon pushed a handful of dangling creeping plants to the side so that he would slip into the humid den, Berney following shortly after as he slid right in and made himself at home by coiling himself into a noodle bean bag and planting himself right on the said bag. The human took a few reasonable steps into the deep cave, his flashlight shining against the internals of the cave, only stopping when he could just barely hear the outside noises of the lush settling forest. His arms went slack as the man rolled his shoulders back to release his back from the truckload of equipment he had on his shoulders, letting them clatter to the ground as he to let himself spill down to the ground unceremoniously. The roughed up hands of the human toiled with the chilly, damp bag that had hung off his back for the past few hours, unzipping all of the available pockets and sections so that he could lay them out in the cave to note if any water damage on any of his equipment.

To his dismay, the Black Messa Automatic Tent Folder had gone caput with the damage from the fall, locked up completely as Gordon tried in vain to try and pry the hard plastic open to access his beloved tent, but sadly to no avail. Tossing the cartridge away, he returned to searching, luckily the rest of the water damage was minimal, only his sleeping bag, concealed meal tote, and even his notebook had some external damage to them. The other waterlogged items were set out to dry for the night while the hungry human opened his meal bag, pulling out a bag of Doritos, a ham sandwich, and a water bottle. As much as he wanted to satisfy his starving stomach to its capacity, he had to ration his food, Gordon did not know when he was going to get another ration drop, or if he was going to get any at all.

The sound of the sealed chip bag being popped open seemed to pique the interest of the resting snake, his eyes being drawn to the said bag and the strange smell of the human food, his forked black tongue slipping out form his maw to flick at the new wafting scent.

“uhhhh, what do you have there, man?”

“...Dorritos?”

Benrey had never heard of this sort of ‘Dorrito,’ but it smelled amazing. He slowly slithered over to the snacking human, who by now was glancing over to the incoming beast, his anxiousness about the much larger beast spiking once again.

“You gonna share any of that?” Benrey asked, his now wide eyes fixated entirely on the bright red chip bag that was being clenched in between Gordon’s fingers.

Now Gordon was a bit of a stickler when it came to food, barely sharing any of his consumables with anyone. It was his grub; why should he have to share it with someone he barely knew? But this was a massive predatory snake that could easily shred him with those wicked claws and swallow his remains whole without issue. So he would instead not get on his bad side, plus maybe this could be a sort of endearing sign of trust. Like he could feed Benrey as a way of gaining his trust, like a sort of feral animal? That sounded a bit dehumanizing honestly, but it was a start of some sort.

So he slowly offered the bag up to the serpent, expecting him to take one, or a couple of chips from the pack to eat, but ended up taking the whole bag instead, the beast’s massive claws nearly engulfing Gordon’s tinier hands. Gordon could only watch in both shocked horror, and disgusted interest as Benrey shoved a massive claw down into the flimsy container and pulled out a giant handful of that artificial cheesy goodness, just for it to be engulfed by the same enormous maw. Benrey bearly even chewed the pointed chips, the crunching coming from the inhuman crushing the chips with his tongue alone, lapping up all that chip dust the snake had. Gordon could basically see stars forming in his eyes from the unique flavor of the triangle flakes. That was not a good sign for Gordon, quickly getting up and snagging the now nearly empty bag from Benrey, waning to at least preserve some of the chips for himself.

Benrey did not even notice the absence of the snack container as he swallowed the crushed up chips, his tongue slipping out to lick both his lips and talons. Gordon took Benrey’s enamored licking to devour his share of chips quickly, leaving an empty bag behind as he drowned the remaining dust down with the water bottle he had.

After a thorough cleaning from the snake, his attention was turned back towards the scarfing human. 

“bro, you got any more of that good shit?”  
“No I don’t dude, you ate it all fat ass.”

“oh come on, Gorman. you gotta have more of that dori-toes in that wet sack of yours.” Benrey whined, reaching over to the still soaked sack before having his attempt stopped by a surprisingly hard chop by Gordon, making his hand retreat back as the annoyed man dragged the bag closer to himself.

“Don’t go through my shit; I told you I don’t have anymore Doritos!”

Benrey only glared back at Gordon. His eyes returned to his natural half-lidded long stare, sitting there for a moment like he was stuck in thought before slithering over to a nearby corner of the cave and cloning in on himself like he was getting ready to sleep again.

Gordon at first was annoyed at the snake for even trying to get into his limited supply of food, but then slowly had a pit of guilt form in his stomach as he thought that maybe he had offended the snake in some way. Well, there went that attempt at trying to gain trust. He resumed eating after, finishing off half his sandwich before sacking it back in his meal bag, returning that to his sack before finally deciding that it was probably a good time to get some sleep for tonight.

However, sleep could never come easy to Gordon Freeman, especially when he started to slip into his sleeping pouch, only to wiggle back out of it once he immediately noticed how wet it still was from his earlier swim. So he opted to use his not so wet sack as a pillow instead, reaching in to pull out his waterlogged notebook and pen so he could pass his sleepless time with some mandatory note-taking.

Writing down the notes from today’s adventures, he could not help but glance up at the coiled up serpentine, noting how the tail had covered the human half of the being entirely, balled himself up like a shy small ball python. It was oddly cute, just seeing such a massive creature be all curled up like this snoozing away the night. Weren’t snakes supposed to be nocturnal? Probably being awake during the day knocked his sleep schedule off course. Or did he even sleep in the first place?

Those thoughts translated themselves onto the journal that Gordon was writing on, jotting down notes and questions that had popped into his mind. He even tried to sketch down the ball of scales, he was never the artistic type, but he wanted to have at least some sort of physical remembrance of the snake beside his random notes. He had to admit, those dark scales of his were rather beautiful, shimmering even in the darkest of caves, there was something so mesmerizing about them. Even those lazy piercing yellow eyes, Gordon could never shake from his mind, his stare alone made Gordon feel so small and vulnerable, like a helpless mouse caught in a hypnotizing glare of the serpent. Something about that snake made Gordon feel some sort of way; he presumed it had to be fear, but deep down, there was an underlying feeling that Gordon could not quite pinpoint, and it was starting to bother him.  
At some point, Gordon had stopped looking up and focused entirely on his recordings and thoughts, not noticing the slight sifting of movement around him.

“whatcha got there?” A voice came from right next to Gordon’s right ear, making him yelp as he spun around on his bottom to see Benrey glancing over his shoulder to see what e was writing. How did he move so fast? And so quietly as well? Wasn’t he just coiled up right in front of him not only two minutes ago?

“I-Its nothing. Just some personal notes is all.” Gordon stammered, surprise and an ounce of fear evident in his stuttering voice as he shut the notebook in his lap.

“you sure, bro? because I saw scribbles and a ball of me. you sure your not writing about me, bro? being gay and all?”

Gordon felt his face tint red, either out of embarrassment or being flustered by the idea of him being at that level of interest with a giant snake. No, he was not gay for the snake, not at all, nope, just simple observations are all. The human shook his head as he retired the book to his nap sack, tugging the bag from beside the giant snake, and back towards the farther wall from Benrey.

“It’s just notes Benrey. I need to-” a pause, rethinking his words, hoping Benrey did not catch his slip up. “It helps keep me grounded, so I know what the hell is even happening anymore.” Gordon responded appropriately, readjusting his makeshift pillow before plopping his head down on it.

Luckily Benrey did not only getting stuck once again in his trance still as he thought about his next course of action while staring through Gordon’s very being. That damn stare back made Gordon shudder, the same vulnerable feeling returning to him as he pulled his legs up to his chest in a sort of fetal position.

“well even if you’re not being gay for Benrey boy here-” Benrey added, a long muscle slowly encompassing the small human’s form and sleeping bag as he started to squirm in surprise. “at least get a better nest gorman. gonna feel like shit at sunrise if you sleep like that.”

This was very unexpected for Gordon, to say the very least. He expected the last time to be wrapped up in this giant tail is when Benrey would finally decide he wanted a human snack, not to be Gordon’s new ‘nest.’ So it was natural for Gordon to start struggling out of instinct at the sudden shift of position from hard ground to surprisingly warm and sleek tail.

“Woah, Woah Woah! Benrey wh-”

“gorman, chill, you’re okay, I’m not, I’m not squeezing you to death.” Benrey responded in his same monotone voice, more of his thick tail starting to cover Gordon like a long noodle blanket. Gordon had noticed that the amount of black scale tail was bearly enough to have caused Benrey to move, still in the same spot he was in when he snuck up on Gordon. How long was this serpent’s tail? Had to be around fifty feet easy, right? His struggle slowed to a halt as he witnessed Benrey make his own tail bed right beside him, coiling in on himself as he did before when Benrey had made himself his ball bed.

The tail around Gordon shifted as well, smooth scales sliding over the human’s form as it repositioned itself to shape more to Gordon’s smaller form. From what Freeman would remember about snakes, they were usually cold to the touch to humans, but this one was all warm, like a giant weighted heat blanket that wrapped around his entire body. Even the periodic massage from the tail got his tense body to eventually loosen up for him to relax into the smooth bed around him entirely. It all felt so strangely nice for Gordon, just being surrounded by layers of reptilian flesh, safely held in a warm embrace as his brain started to drift off into unconsciousness slowly. He should not be this relaxed around a predator, but here he was, practically melting into Benrey’s gentle tail hug. What was wrong with him?

Once Benrey felt the small human’s body go slack in his grip, he finally spoke up again. “see man, I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m not, not uhhhh, all bad. silly little human Gorman, thinks I’m gonna get him.” 

Benrey’s words were simply a mutter to Gordon as he let himself close his eyes, making them flutter shut as his body nuzzled himself deeper into the warmth of the tail. His legs sticking out from the pile of black noodles slowly being pulled back in to conserve the heat that his body was absorbing from the tail. It all felt too lovely to be true, sleeping on the same giant snake that had invaded his previous camping sight a night before, and had dragged him into a leech-infested river only hours before now. Benrey was all of a sudden being so gentle with him; it had to be some sort of trap to lure him into some kind of false sense of security to get him to let his guard down so that he snake could easily slay him. If it was, it has already worked, Gordon was falling faster into sleep than he ever had, his defenses have dropped, and he was a sitting duck in the coils of the beast.

But Benrey was not striking, not even making any sort of movement as the smaller human fell into sleep town. Letting his travel partner rest in the comfort and safety of his coils so that he could have a restful night sleep this moonless night.

It looks like that trust exercise truly worked after all.


	4. Monkeys Are Assholes

Cold hard stone was the first physical feeling Gordon had felt when his consciousness had returned to him. His body felt no aches or pain when his body slowly started to wake back up, the warmth surrounding him was now gone, leaving the cold air to wash away the comforting blanket of scaled warmth from his form. A soft whine unintentionally left his throat as he curled back in on himself for some extra warmth, Gordon never knew how badly he wanted that tail wrapped back around him again. The gentle rays of light had peered itself right over Gordon’s closed eyes, causing him to squeeze his lids tighter before flipping over to his side to evade his sleepy eyes from the new morning light. Gordon’s tired brain was creeping closer to being fully awake, the fog of sleep still covering his logical thoughts, making him want to just return to rest, despite him now missing his comfortable snake bed.

Where was Benrey anyways? Was he not just wrapped around Gordon when he fell asleep? How did he even unwrap himself from Gordon when he eventually left? Probably since Gordon was sleeping like a rock for the entire night, thanks to the new sleeping bag he was wrapped in the majority of the night, he was able to unwind his tail from him and slither off somewhere. At least Gordon was free from any more irritating taunts from the giant reptile.

He was not free, however, from the gentle sounds of rustling plastic and cloth behind him. Maybe Benrey did not leave him after all, possibly rummaging though his camp sack for some elusive Doritos that he fell in love with yesterday.

“Benrey, fucking hell stop trying to get into my-” Gordon groaned as he forced his body to sit up and face back over to his camping bag. Only to be met with the almost comedic sight of a group of primates emptying his camp sack and monkeying around with the contents of his pack. Tossing his sealed shut camping tent like it was some sort of American football, eating up the last bits of his meal rations, to even tearing out pages of his recording journal. Gordon had to be in some sort of reality sitcom because none of this was feeling real to him now, or that maybe that was the sleep fog talking.

It did not matter, because once the group of scamps noticed that the owner of their new toys had taken notice of their vandalism, they ceased all movement and froze in time. They both only stared at each other for a moment, that agitated and awkward silence between the group and human only adding onto the absolute strangeness of this whole situation. Only when the slightest movement from Gordon as he resituated his legs to stand sent the pack of monkeys into a frenzy, grabbing whatever was closest to them that was not already picked up by another member of their pack and bolted for the covered cave exit. They had left nothing but scraps of food wrap plastic and hair from their bodies, leaving Gordon in their dust as he became fully aware of what was happening.

He was just robbed in daylight by fucking monkeys.

“Hey! Get back here, you assholes!” The human screamed, giving chase to the fleeing apes, his tired body being refueled by his rekindled anger and the morning adrenaline he now has flowing through his body. It looks like Gordon was going for a morning run today.

The monkeys led the sprinting human on a wild chase, zigging and zagging between trees, bounding off rock structures to evade being grabbed, even throwing Gordon’s belongings around him at times he manages to catch up to the fleeing monkeys, like a reverse game of monkey in the middle.

This whole song and dance continued for an annoying amount of time, Gordon’s legs were starting to grow sore after all of this running, but he’s always gotten so close to grabbing one of those little bastards and tearing at least one of his items back from those frail little paws. Even now, he was only but a few centimeters away from grabbing the scruff of one of those primates, fur lightly tickling the tips of his fingers before they took a sharp upwards leap, leaving Gordon to skid and land face-first into a gritty tree. He definitely felt something snap on his face as he made contact with the bark, scratching up his face with the splinters of the rugged trunk. His body fell back, hands flying up to his red oozing face, trying to cover up his pain as the chorus of cackling monkeys filled the jungle with its hideous melody. 

Why did this have to be his life? Why? Being laughed at by a bunch of animals that had just stolen his survival essentials, having his face slammed into a tree to break his nose. Just his luck, it seems. He wanted to scream, wanted to rip these primates a new one like Benrey did when he first caught sight of him, minus the consuming part. He just wanted to cry now, why were his morning always the worse for him?

He slowly pushed himself back up with his not bloodied, standing back on his own two feet again as blood gushed from his broken nose and stained both his hand and jacket sleeve. Gordon was just about to scream at the thieves to return his shit to him, to curse them out to hell and back. But something else had taken his job for him. 

A more human voice emerged from the vegetation of the forest, calm, stern, but yet stuttering at the same time. However, what the voice said was entirely lost on Gordon, the language sounded alien to him; it wasn’t any sort of dialect he had heard back at Black Messa or even in modern society. But whatever terminology the voice said, it silenced the cackling apes for once.

Gordon spun around to where the voice was originating from to be met with the sight of yet another snake human emerging from the dense vegetation of the jungle. This one was considerably larger than Benrey, their tail resembling a yellow patterned ball python, a banana ball python, was it? His human torso was almost the same as Benrey’s, save for the different colored scales, more extended and more muscular body structure, not to mention that this one had a surprisingly clean propeller hat propped on top of his head. As well as a long yellow Burmese python draped over their shoulders, seeming to turn its head towards Gordon for a split second before turning back to the monkeys above that its owner was glaring at.  
For a split moment, the glare had softened as orange-tinted yellow eyes glanced back at the bleeding human beside him, a slight feeling of pity in his glance as he returned his glance back at the softly chittering apes. That same alien dialect emerged once more; this time, the tone of the snake was more aggressive, louder even. Gordon could only guess what they were growling at the monkeys, the dialect making it all too confusing even to attempt to decipher any sort of syllables and vowels to get at least some kind of grasp on this new language. If Gordon had to guess here, he would assume that maybe the beast was giving the apes a stern talking to by the tone of the other’s angered voice. But that futile understanding would fall flat as silence fell once again between the others, the natural noises of the jungle occupying the empty void of sound that was left. A look of annoyance crossed the yellow snake’s face, fangs flashing as he let out an almost deafening alien scream, sounding like a command more than an animalistic roar. The primates started to scatter, dropping Gordon’s belongings to the hard jungle floor before screeching off in fear into the deep lush forest.

Once the screeching apes were entirely out of eye and ear-shot, the serpent turned to Gordon, that frightening angry tone they had with the nuisance was wholly replaced by a more worried and cautious tone as he slowly approached the tiny man. 

“I-I’m so so-sorry about that human; the Simians are annoying little things. I hope they d-didn’t cause you too-too much trouble.” The snake replied in a more understandable language for Gordon. 

“I-It’s okay. Fuckers have been bothering me for a while now.” Gordon replied with a hand over gushing his nose. Heading over to where the apes had dropped his lost items, Gordon checked for any more damage brought to his supplies. Luckily there was not anything noticeable, only claw marks and scruffed up edges. Sadly same can’t be said about his journal; almost all of the pages were torn out, mainly his notes, leaving crumpled and ripped paper behind with a couple of miraculously spared pages. That was just possibly weeks of research out the door in a matter of seconds, that definitely did not help with Gordon’s already shitty moring.

As Gordon got to scraping the remaining scraps of his equipment back into his bag, he took notice of the snake-human slowly slithering closer to him, that same worry hidden in his more curious facial expression. 

“Woul-would you like any help with t-that Mister-?” The snake questioned, stopping right beside the smaller human, who was barely even tall enough to their waist at a crouched position.

“Gordon, Gordon Freeman,” the human responed pushing the last of his supplies into the bag, reaching over to grab more of said items as crimson liquid dripped over the jungle floor. “And I’ve got this, thank you for offering… What’s your name?” Gordon asked, locking up his sack as he turned his head toward the snake.

“I-It’s Tommy Mister Freeman and o-” Tommy’s expression changed from curious to shocked horror as he got a good clean look at the banged-up human’s face.

“O-Oh shit. Are you okay? Do-Do you need any healing attention t-to your face?” Tommy asked, slowly starting to panic as his pupils constricted on the dripping blood coming from Gordon’s broken nose. Tommy knew that any amount of red blood outside of a body was a bad sign, it could attract the attention of predators, or even cause the bleeder to become ill if enough red was lost, and mister Freeman looks like to have lost a lot already.

Gordon glanced back down to his bloodied hand, noticing just how much he has bled out if it was not clear by the thick warm liquid dripping off of his stained chin already. Maybe he did need medical attention; his first aid kit was more than likely emptied out like a tissue box thanks to the monkeys from earlier, so that would not be of any use to him. Tommy here sounded like he knew what he was doing, taking care of the thieves that stole his pack of tools. Plus, this snake was a whole lot nicer to him than Benrey was during their first encounter. What else did Gordon have to lose here?

“Yeah, I think I do.” 

“T-Then uh, could you follow m-me? I-I can take you to Darnold; he-he’s really good with healing potions. A-And he can even get you all patched up!” Tommy replied the end of his tail, swishing at the mention of this Darnold character. They had to be another snake person, seeing his luck with encountering snake people in this godforsaken jungle.

As a response, Gordon nodded, bending back down to pick up his backpack, only to be intercepted by Tommy as he placed a large yellow scaled hand on his shoulder.

“Let me carry that for you, M-Mister Freeman. I-I don’t want you straining yourself any further with you i-in this state.” Tommy responded, already grabbing the heavy bag fro Gordon’s hands and effortlessly carrying it in his. Well, that was one less burden the human had to worry about carrying on his shoulders. 

“Thanks, Tommy. You lead the way then.” Gordon thanked, managing to crack a grin as Tommy shared that same smile back, slowly slithering off so that Gordon could easily keep up with his giant form.

At least this day was starting to look better already… Despite his still bleeding face.


	5. Potion Maker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting from now on, at the end of each chapter, there is going to be a TLDR for readers who have a hard time reading long chapters. I want everyone to enjoy my writing to the fullest! I'll be sure to go back and add TLDR to the previous chapters as well!

The long walk through the jungle was just as hellish as usual, the overbearing vegetation, the uneven terrain that Gordon stumbled over constantly, and now a bleeding nose that was starting to dry on his skin and shirt. He continued to try and keep up his pace with the more massive snake human despite his slowly growing amount of blood loss, making his head feel like it was being lifted off his shoulders by hot air balloons. His world was already spinning around him, wavering on and off as his footsteps became more and more cluttered and wavery. How much blood was he losing? Surely he could not be losing too much; it is only just a broken nose that should not be making his nose run like a broken faucet, right?

His thoughts were clouded again as his body stumbled over to a nearby tree, leaning his unsteady body against it as he tried to wrangle his scrambling thoughts. The sudden stop of footsteps made Tommy slid to a halt to glance behind him, spotting the hunched over and bleeding Freeman.

“M-Mister Freeman? Are yo-you sure you're alright?” Tommy asked, concern growing more evident on his face as he slowly approached the wounded man.

"Y-Yeah… I'm fine… All…. Good." All the human could spit out before his weak legs finally gave out underneath him, causing him to plummet to the ground with a heavy thud, debris, and fallen leaves scattering from the force of the impact alone. His vision was already spinning and darkening at the edges of his sight, his head crushing in on his skull, threatening to either burst or crush what was in that head of his. 

That did not sit well with Tommy, immediately slithering over to Gordon’s barely hold as he lifted the man back to his feet, just to have him go weak at the knees and fall back down on them again. Oh no, this was not good, not at all. Gordon had lost too much red blood, and now he was about to pass out, and humans do not have that much blood to spill. So at the second failed attempt to make Freeman stand, Tommy had to help the bleeding human adequately.

"M-Mister Freeman, I’m-I’m going to have to use part of your wovens you have on. Ju-just to slow the bleeding for now." Tommy informed, grabbing onto one of Gordon's shirt sleeves and using onto is his razor-sharp talons to rip the sleeve right off from Gordon's shirt, leaving the human with half a tank top now. With the torn sleeve off, Tommy placed it directly over Gordon’s broken gushing faucet of a nose, applying pressure in hopes to at least slow the bleeding.

Tommy turned his head to look down at the giant snake wrapped around his shoulders. That same foreign tongue being used to talk again to the smaller serpent, his tone barely being able to be deciphered of worry and urgency by the groggy physicist. The said serpent simply slithered off their perch and quickly slithered off into the vegetation, vanishing in meer seconds. 

“I-I’m going to have to take you to Darnold’s myself. Y-You, don’t look like you c-can stand on your own, Mister Freeman.” Tommy informed. Next thing Gordon knew was that he was being lifted into the air with little effort by Tommy, and soon being cradled like a small child in the serpent’s arms as the torn cloth was being pressed slightly harder against his face. 

Gordon could not even process what was happening anymore. His brain felt like it was being spun around and around on a merry-go-round with no way to jump off. The only information he was able to manage to process was the sudden cold air on his right shoulder, his nose being smothered in some strange cloth, and his center of gravity being switched to his back. What was Tommy doing? Was he going to hurt him? No, no, he was not, he’s just carrying him now. Did he say something about a Darnold? Would they be able to help him? Or hurt him? Was this a trap? This merry-go-round was not stopping until Gordon could feel the ride slowly starting to fade away from his head as he too began to fall into unconsciousness, thanks to the massive amounts of blood loss he has had from his wound. The adrenaline in his system was starting to wane off as his brain took notice of the lack of vital fluid reaching his brain, leaving him to go limp on Tommy’s arms, making Tommy start to speed up in trying to reach Darnold in time.

\-----------------------------------

Another successful hunt for Benry if he says so himself. He was able to catch himself a few lone wolves that started too far from their pack, and a couple of annoying chimps from the treetops for the sleepy-headed Gorman. That human can sleep like a boulder when he wants to, huh? Benrey tried waking him up by pushing him off his tail, but he still slept, even managing to hold onto part of his tail. It had taken a few shakes to get the slumbering Gordon off his tail so that he could go hunting. Even with that metal claw of his, it would not do him much good in this jungle, more or less against other predators that wanted to hunt him.

As Benrey slipped into the cave, he was slightly disappointed to see that the only occupants of the stone shelter were scattered clear wrappers and torn pages of some sort of book. On closer inspection, Benrey noticed that the pages were from Gorman’s writing book that he was scribbling in last night, maybe he can finally see what he was writing about in that journal. He did not even question the sudden lone pages outside of its original notebook, maybe he woke up and got so embarrassed from big boy Benrey cathing him writing about him in that tiny book of his.

Slithering over to the torn up and out pages of the journal, he gathered some of them up into his claws, making sure that he does not ruin them further than they already had been. Those little drawings of him did strike Benrey somewhere deep, it was oddly charming that Gorman had sketched him out like this. The sketches had made of the serpent depicted him not as a giant monster that he had thought himself to usually be, but as a human, or at least human-like considering the enormous tall attached to him. The snake had always expected the human seeing him as either a giant savage beast that he could easily take out at any time or vice versa. Either the former or some lingering nuisance, seeing how he’s reacted to his jabs and playful remarks in the past with angry vitriol. That should have fueled the human’s hatred towards him, right? In spite of that, here he was, being depicted as some average human, lounging on their tail like it was a nest. There came a slight fluttery feeling in his chest, like insects fluttering their wings within his heart. Even his face started to heat some, a light tint of red glowing on his face when he tore his gaze away from the papers for a moment.

Don’t be so in love with this human, Benrey; he’s not even your mate, a guardian can’t fall in love with a human anyway, it’s against the Guardian Law... Right?

Benrey shook his head, shaking the very pleasant thoughts out of his mind as he turned back to the pages. He could not quite make out what the strange straight lines of scribbles were; he was not so versed in multilingual readings as his best bro Tommy was. Maybe he can bring these back to Tommy so he could decipher Gorman’s messy writing for him, get to know what Gordon REALLY thinks of him. He shoved the papers underneath his helmet, keeping them tucked away for safekeeping.

Now it is to find Gordon, letting his signature black tongue flicker in and out of his jaw to smell the air for any sign of Gordon’s scent. Luckily there was a trail, and it was still reasonably fresh as well, leading right out of the cave and into the jungle. Must have gone hunting by himself a bit after Benrey left, or maybe did more of that “research” that Black Messa was known for doing, he hoped the former of the two.

The scent was getting stronger as he followed the trail, through the winding jungle that he knew so well, over and under branches and roots, zig-zagging through trees and rocks. It seemed almost like a panicked sort of run that Gordon went on like another animal was chasing him. There was no other scent trail that was combining with Gordon’s; however, maybe he had been tracking something? None of that made Benrey’s growing worry settle down any. 

It truly skyrocketed once the scent spiked in strength, the source being several puddles of blood-soaked soil underneath him and smeared on a tree stalk in front of him. Oh no, oh fuck no, this was definitely not good, not great at all. Benrey could have marked this as a lower grade predator attack and that Gordon may have gone off and escaped that attack if it wasn’t for the heart-stopping realization he had next.

There was another scent, a Guardian’s scent, worse yet it was Tommy’s. He knew Tommy than any other guardian here; he knew that the yellow snake followed the law to a T, and he had never broken any of the codes at all, not even the minor ones. Moreover, if Benrey remembered the code right, the most significant rule was to eliminate any human that intruded in the jungle, the code he had been breaking all this time, and he knew it. Did Tommy take out Freeman like this? Was it even like him to do this? Was Gordan even able to fight back? It was Berney’s turn to have worried thoughts whirl around in his mind. That black tongue flicked in and out of his maw desperately as his breathing hitched, trying his damnedest best to catch at least some remaining stream of Gordon’s bloodied scent. The trail followed a line of splotched blood lingering on the jungle floor, trailing right beside an indented curved line before abruptly stopping next to the continuing line. Benrey’s dread only fueled his frantic searching, following the now combined trails of the auras. He let his nose do the tracking as his brain was switched into high alert mode, sliding fast between the vegetation and around any obstacle that got in his path.

He just hoped to G-Snake that he wasn’t too late to save his human travel comrade.

\---------------------------------

Tommy did not dare to try and cross the river separating the two main islands; he did not want to risk getting the fainted human’s injuries damaged further by the dangerous waters of the vast connected river of the jungle. His tail may not be long enough to keep both of them dry from the deep trench, more or less hinder his swimming abilities. So he went for the scenic route, there was a trail of land that connected the two parts of earth. However, it cut through the Ruins, his father’s territory, and he knew all too well how he would react to seeing a human in his jungle, more less one sporting the symbol of that terrible group that’s been terrorizing the jungle for years now. Tommy only hoped that his adoptive father was either sleeping or out hunting as he passed through.

Luckily, there was no sign of that benevolent deity anywhere as he passed by the outskirts of the ruined stone city structures nestled in overgrown vegetation. So he was free to pass through with no intervention from the god himself. This part of the jungle was always a portion that Tommy always wanted to avoid as much as possible. He had never felt like he'd honestly had a good connection with him, yes he was technically his father, and he's done so many nice things for him to compensate for the lack of a 'true family' as he put it, even making him a guardian of all things. The offerings had never felt genuine to him, like he was just doing it out of his own pity, or need for some form of self-worth. G-man had never truly felt like a father to him, only as a god who gave sympathy to a poor, unfortunate snake.

Those thoughts were wiped from Tommy’s head as he crossed the final stretch of ruined land that stopped right at the other end of the edge of the ruins, not even sparing a second glance as he disappeared back into the other half of the mainland jungle. His focus was once again still focussed on Gordon, the human’s breathing had slowed down a considerable amount, becoming shallow as well. This was now starting to get worrying, making Tommy hurry even faster, his large body taking him even farther and more quickly through the dense vegetation. He used his body to shield Freeman from any incoming low swinging branches that threatened to scratch Gordon’s already scared body even further.

It would not take long for Tommy to find his intended location, the most massive overgrown tree that rose above all the other dwarfed trees around it. Its veiny bark was masking the dim flickering light illuminating from between the hollowed cracks of the husk. Clearly, someone was living here, especially with some of the smeared colored markings on the outside, and Tommy knew precisely who.

What met him in front of the staggering tree was a shorter yet more stocky, darker-skinned serpentine, only this one resembled what could be taken as a venomous Coral Snake at first glance. On closer inspection, however, one could tell by the swapped color markings that they were a Milk Snake, a lot less of a threat than the former. The worried human serpent, Darnold, already had Tommy’s snake draped over his shoulders, her head scooping upwards as she sensed the incoming partner.

“Hey Hun, Sunkist came over to my tree, something wrong?” He asked, meeting Tommy halfway to the tree before halting at the sight of an unconscious, bleeding human in his arms. Darnold’s eye widened to the size of dinner plates as he spotted him, shocked at the sight of an injured human in the usually tame Tommy’s arms.

“T-Tommy, did you, um, kill them?” Darnold asked. He would not be surprised if he did; this was not the first time he had witnessed Tommy kill a human in cold blood. It is just so strange that he had brought this one to him for some reason.

“N-No! I-I d-didn’t! This is M-Mister Freeman; he got hurt while chasing some of the Simians that had taken his belongings. And now h-he’s unconscious and gushing red. I need your help to heal him.”

“But is like, helping humans against our code as guardians?”

“Not if they haven’t attacked us first, and Mister F-Freeman hurt himself i-in the first place P-please love, help heal Mister Freeman. I-I don’t want to see him perish like this.”

Darnold hesitated for a short bit; he was not so keen on helping humans out in any way, seeing how the rest of the guardians reacted to humans and how the different raids on the jungle from said humans ended in massive amounts of bloodshed from either side. He had seen what humans could do to his friends, how damaging they can be to their home, and how much they can take away in just the blink of an eye. In all honesty, he was petrified of humans, more so scared than angry at them like the rest of the guardians were. Now there was one so injured and helpless in front of him in his partner’s arms. He should be relieved, right? That another one of those damn humans were taken care of, and he would not have to worry about this one ever. It is only that, the pleading look from Tommy’s eyes tugged at his torn heart. He knew that Tommy had a moral core and that he only wanted to help those he saw as good people in his eyes, just how caring Tommy was to those kind souls he stumbled across. Darnold trusted Tommy with all he had; his paranoia and dread held him back from acting on that trust with the one he loved the most.

He fought through that fear, taking another glance at the unconscious human before looking back into Tommy’s yellow sunrise eyes and nodded, waving his arm towards the hulking timber, motioning from Tommy to follow.

“Very well. Bring Mister Freeman in and set him down in the hung cloth, I’ll get a potion and wraps set up to start healing him.”

A cheery smile would be brought back to Tommy’s previously distressed face; his enthusiasm was slowly creeping back to him. “Y-You’re going to be okay, M-Mister Freeman,” he reassured the still knocked out human before slithering forward and into the healer’s den to get the poor human healed up.

\----------------------

A smashing headache is what Gordon was greeted to when he had started to come to once again. The feeling of millions of hammers bashing both inside and outside of his skull was such a welcoming sensation for the researcher, especially when he was having a hard time maneuvering his body to push himself up off this cloth-like pouch. He really needed to stop passing out in the weirdest of places.

Now come to think about it, despite his new bodily tingling sensation rippling throughout his body, he did not feel his nose being broken in half like it was just it was before he passed out. Hell, even the less significant cuts and bruises were either non-existent or nearly healed all over his body, or at least the ones his awaking mind could process where the slight pain was coming from.

His eyes crept open, bright sunlight that broke through the small holes of the tree’s veiny exterior and nearly blinded Gordon as rays hit his eyes, making him push himself up from the wobbly bed to avoid blinding himself. When he finally noticed where he was, he was nestled in a giant patchwork hammock that was tied between two large branches that were adorned with hanging multicolored bottles filled with all sorts of unknown substances and glowing insects. The area around him was something straight out of a storybook, a hollowed-out tree that was decked out with countless boxes, barrels, and bottles of varying sizes and amounts, all stacked on top of each other like makeshift tables and counters. Many more of those bottles dangled by ropes and strings from the jagged twisted ceiling of the tree, all at different levels and heights, almost resembling a rainy day if the rain droplets were bottles. Some of the bottles even being stored in both messy and neatly carved out holes in the bark, acting as natural shelving. The centerpiece of this mystical bottle world was the hollowed-out tree stump in the middle of the emptied tree. It was covered in dried stains of many unknown substances and potions, the tree underneath it being a pit where other firewood and sticks were placed. Underneath the stump black rocks covering the outskirts of the hole, a sort of shield so that any embers did not catch the rest of the tree on fire by accident.

The magnificent scenery would have absolutely enamored Gordon if it was not for the sudden echo of a new and unexpected voice coming from right behind him. “Oh, you’re awake, Mister Freeman! Fantastic!” That made Gordon jump with a yelp, scrambling a bit before realizing that he was now falling out of the comfort of the hammock and onto the hardwood floor, luckily back first.

“Mister Freeman! Are you okay?!” Darnold asked, shocked at Gordon’s sudden reaction, who by now was scrambling back up onto his own two feet. Oh no, not another one of those snakes, how many of them were there? Gordon slowly started to back up; still, a bit frazzled by the sudden appearance of yet another snake human. “Y-yeah, I’m fine,” Gordon replied, his posture not yet fully relaxed. 

“I’m sorry if I startled you. I was simply checking up on you to see if your injuries have healed up while you were out. But since your up and moving about, I can see that your injuries have definitely healed!”

“...Wait, healed? What do you mean by healed?”Gordon asked, reaching a hand up to feel his Gordon’s mind was still slightly foggy from the blood loss fainting before now. Are broken noses supposed to heal a lot slower than just a few hours? This had to be some jungle magic shit, and Gordon probably should not be surprised at this by now seeing how he had run-in with now three different snake humans and is now standing in a brewing tree.

“Yes! Healed! My partner Tommy had brought you in all bleeding and broken, he wanted me to help mend your wounds you, and so I did. I used some of my healing positions to cover your injuries, and they slowly started to recover as you were still knocked out.”

Okay, so this snake had healed him, and Tommy had brought him here to fix his broken nose. So he must have passed out along the way to here then since he cannot remember anything past Tommy shredding off his shirt sleeve for some reason that was lost on him.

Gordon started to relax a bit as he finally started to correctly process everything again, looking around to see if he could spot his bag of survival tools conveniently placed next to the tree’s rutted exit. 

“Well, still, Thanks for fixing my fucked nose… Uh-”

“Darnold, Mister Freeman, You can call me Darnold.”

“And you can call me Gordon, Darnold.” He did not even question how he knew his last name, probably knew it when Tommy had brought him here for help.

Speaking of Tommy, where did he go?

Gordon once again looked around, this time searching for any signs of that helpful yellow serpent. “Hey, where did Tommy go?” Gordon asked, glancing back to the Milk Snake.

“I had him go out and get me some more ingredients for more potions, and I didn’t know if I would need any more potent potions for your wounds.”

“Oh. Alright, hopefully, he’ll be back soon. Cus I have some things I need to-” Gordon was quickly cut off by a very loud, and all too familiar voice echoing from around the tree.

“GORDON!”

That reverberating sound made Gordon nearly jump right out of his skin, with Darnold practically doing the adjacent but with his own scales. Both of the occupants turning to see the Black Mamba squeeze from a large hole high up in the tree. Benrey’s human portion gripped onto a free part of a tree branch. His tail haphazardly rubbed against the many dangling bottles, leaving them to clink into one another as he moved into the hollow tree. 

Even from Gordon’s position on the ground, and from his cracked glasses, he could make out the black serpent’s face. He surprisingly had this distinct look of worry on his usually monotone and expressionless face. He was looking right at Gordon as he descended downwards, the clanking of the bottles making that all the more apparent. How was he able to find him? Did he follow his scent? Or was there a train of his own nose blood that dripped all the way to here? Never the less, Gordon could only look at the serpent with his surprised expression as they situated themselves right in front of Gordon, that same worried expression still plastered on his face.

“Oh shit, hey, Benrey. How-How did you find me” Gordon yelped in surprise, glancing upwards as Benrey noticed that Gordon’s facial expression went from shock to slight concern as he saw Benrey’s concern. Was he really concerned for him? Did he not just drag him to a river just a day ago? And even joked about killing him before then? Why the hell would he be concerned for his own well being? This had to be some sort of joke, but that distress looked too real to Gordon. Those same damned yellow eyes told more of a story than his pulled frown, even if he could not bearly see the furrowed eyebrows underneath that shadow, worry, and dread were piercing right through Gordons being once again. Only this time, he did not feel any fear that he felt whenever the serpent stared at him before like a predator to weak prey; instead, it gave him a more secure warm feeling, like a loved one waiting for him to come home. This felt all too real for Gordon, and even his paranoia was starting to accept this.

The worried expression did not last long on Benrey’s face, noticing how Gordon’s sock was fading into a puzzlement feeling, and maybe a hint of flattery, he quickly pulled up his monotone face again to hide his previous worry. “i followed your scent, Gorman. smelled you all the way over here.” Back with the monotone voice, conveniently leaving out the part of the blood trail that he followed halfway to find him.

“anyways, uhhhh. how did you end up here little human legs took you running huh?”

There was a pause from Gordon, he knew for a fact that Benrey would more than likely mock him for it for god knows how long. He has already been subject to countless ridicules and jabs from that damn snake that he would rather not have another vantage point for Benrey to mock him on. So maybe if he just makes up a lie, Benrey would leave him be, make up some story that he was being attacked by tigers and managed to run here for safety, or maybe even-

“Mister Freeman here was brought to me by Tommy after he saw him break his nose when he dove for a Simian with some of his trinkets.” Darnold interrupted the silence, earring a hurt glare from Gordon like he had just betrayed what he had ever trusted in the Milksnake before turning his head toward the snickering Black mamba.

“wow, really? idiot man can’t even catch a Simi? and you got that fucked up by those things? weak little man, Simiman. can’t even leave you alone without you getting all sorts of fucked up.” Benrey chuckled as Gordon only glared back at him with duel daggers. His anger bubbling up further as he stared at the snake, he knew arguing with the snake would not get him anywhere by this point, it is best to try and just ignore the new label that was put on him and go on his way. It would just drag the argument on further than it should, or maybe even make Benrey do that weird-ass hypnosis dance he used on him last time that managed to calm him down. That was something he did not want to experience again.

With him pinching the bridge of his nose, he breathed in and out, attempting to calm himself as he turned back to the concerned potion brewer. “Thanks for healing me up, doc- er- Darnold. Tell Tommy I said thanks for helping me from passing out; I really owe him one.” Gordon thanked as he pushed past an annoyed Berney, stepping over his shifting tail and kicking away any attempts to grab him with the said tail.

“Don’t mention it, Gordon, you always welcome back at my brewing tree whenever you need to rest up!” Darnold responded as Gordon smiled a bit, growing relieved to see that another snake being was not here to harm him. 

Grabbing his bag, he noticed two things; one was that the bag was lighter than he had previously thought, probably missed some of his equipment when he picked them up from the monkeys. Some of those bastards must have run off with some of his stuff instead of dropping it when Tommy yelled at them. Second, he had no idea where he was going next, his compass was gone, his map was of no use to him right now, and the only being that could tell him where he was and how to get around was the one who had just mocked him, and he really did not want to deal with him right now. 

Maybe he just needed to get some fresh air, clear his head so he could think a bit more clearly and not be standing in a tree with two snakes. He just needs some Gordon time right now. So he flung the bag over his shoulders and made his way toward the rutted exit, sliding down into the rut before climbing his way up and over the small hump that was covered by a thin blanket of moss. It would be easy to be pushed away so that the shimmering sun’s beams could be seen from underneath, as well as another much larger shadowy figure blocking the way out. Before Gordon got a chance to register who or what was in front of him, his shirt collar was immediately ceased by a rather hot clawed hand and was yanked clean up from the hole. With a yelp, Gordon was slammed down on the hard grassy ground below, knocking whatever wind was in his lungs out of him with a yelp. Those same talons kept him pinned as he managed to struggle underneath; a burning sensation started to form right underneath his neck as a crackly voice sheered from above him.

“Got ya bitch!”

Just another eventful day in the Black jungle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TLDR: Gordon and Tommy venture on for a bit longer before Gordon passes out from his broken nose and Tommy has to carry Gordon to Darnold's potion tree. He passes by his dad's territory and manages to get by without being spotted. He manages to convince his hesitant mate Darnold to help heal Gordon.
> 
> Benrey comes back from hunting to an empty cave and finds Gordon's torn journal entries. he finds them rather cute and starts to realize that he may have stronger feelings for the human. That sentiment doesn't last long, however, since he follows Gordon's scent to a bloody trail that leads off into the jungle, making him all too worried and goes off to find him.
> 
> Gordon wakes up to a healed nose and healed body, noticing that he's in a tree now. He gets startled by Darnold the Milksnake at first, but he calms down once he's told of how he got healed and how he got there. 
> 
> Benrey arrives at the tree, all worried-looking before switching back to his usual neutral expression to hide his obvious worry. Only to make fun of Gordon when he finds out what has happened. that makes Gordon angry as he thanks Darnold for his help before leaving, only to get snagged and pinned by an unknown assailant.


	6. Territorial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait yall. College is starting and I had recently had a slipped into a bad mental state, hope yall enjoy this shorter chapter!

“Let me go!” Gordon screamed, twisting and jerking underneath the giant snake’s weight that was pinning him underneath the simple weight of their tail alone. The claws around his collar swiftly shifted right onto his throat, the feeling of dull warm ashes being placed directly on his jugular. This made the human’s hands fly up to the arm of the taller beast, grabbing tightly at the scaled arm held onto him, only to be met with just as equal heat there was well.

“I don’t think so, mother fucker!” The snake spat back, claws starting to dig into Gordon’s neck, the fire sensation beginning to burn on his throat, causing the human to scream out in both surprise and pain. 

That got a received a tighter grip from the serpent, trying to silence the squirming man. “Oh, shut it human! You probably stole something from Darnold’s tree and were going to bring it back to the other Black Hounds!” Hissed the serpent, hearing something flap open above him as they spat the Black Hounds part.

It was by now that Gordon had started to realize what the snake looked like as they pinned him down. The snake had old wrinkled features furrowed intro a snarling angry expression. A ring of white frizzy hair circling the rim the top of his head where the rest of his hair would have been. Their anger burning blue eyes being framed by cracked rim glasses glared down at the human underneath them. The only other feature that Gordon could make out with his limited vision was a looming hood, the setting evening sun making it difficult to decipher what dark colorways underneath that hood. However, from the little light that Gordon could see with, the inside of the hood was a blue gradient of some sort. The rest of the serpent’s features were hidden from his line of sight due to the scorching claw burning a mark into his sensitive flesh.

“I-I didn’t take a-any thing you fuck. They he-” Gordon choked out, his nails sinking into the snake’s thick scales, not even making any dent in the scales. This weak answer earned Gordon a hardy rise and slam from the elder snake, knocking the rest of the suppressed air from his lungs, making him gasp as the snake’s branding hand bore deeper into his throat, definitely making a mark by this point.

“Yes, you did, you always do. You fucks always take shit from us! Destroy everything you mutts touch! Tearing everything in your path!” Growled the serpent as the tail on top of Gordon’s body started to curl around him, slowly squeezing him. The coils were not as strong as Benrey’s tail, but it was doing its job to keep Gordon from getting a good breath of air and screaming again. “You dogs had taken everything from me, from my friends. I’m not going to let that happen again, mother fucker. You’re not bringing shit back to your leader, your dying right here right no-”

There was a sudden deep growl from beside the two, making the assailant snake whip their head around to where the rumble came from, only to be tackled from the source of said noise. The burning sensation from Gordon’s throat was stripped from his throat as the coils around his body had unraveled themselves from its victim, leaving Gordon to gasp for the cold jungle air once again. Coughing a bit as the sting of a new light burn scar formed on his throat, a light red hand-shaped blotch appearing only slightly as he pushed himself up to see who or what had just saved him from possible firey death.

To his surprise, all he was was a giant twisted ball of brown and black tubes of muscle laced in between each other with an excessive amount of shouts and cursing between the two, mostly from the brown noodle. That was right before a giant wave of fire erupted from the ball, causing the black noodle to tumble backward, revealing who the second attacker was. It was Benrey who had saved him, again, from more danger in this damn jungle, only this time instead of his typical jabs and prods at Gordon’s apparent clumsiness of the jungle he was showing signs of rage. His tail swished vigorously against the grassy ground below him, his tail raising his human portion of his body as his tail swirl around him, trying to look bigger than the other snake before him.

“bubby, bro, what the hell are you doing attacking Gorman?” Asked the angry Black Mamba to the now more visible King Cobra. Their form was just as rumpled as their face, a much skinnier build with a thinner tail to accompany the frail frame. Gordon could not help but think of how this snake was able to keep him down, then again, any of these snake people could easily just pick him up and throw him across this forest like a football if they wanted to.

“Trying to kill that human, of course, bitch! What else are we supposed to do with humans in the jungle?” Bubby hissed, their hood flashing open once again, showing the bright blue underside of the flaps in an attempt to make himself more intimidating to the other snake, who did not look impressed at all with that fake facade.

“well, don’t try to bro, Gorman here isn’t doing shit. we aren’t going to be killing him, none of that today, please.”

“Why?! Why are you protecting this fucking worthless human?! You know what those fucks can do to us, to the jungle. And you know that damn well, Benrey.” Bubby growled, making Benrey tense up further, his tail now thrashing behind him wildly, something about Bubby calling Gordon worthless did not sit well with the snake. Small glowing orbs of black and crimson leaked out of the corners of Benrey’s mouth and floated towards the sky before dispersing into nothing.

Great, another weird power of Benrey’s that Gordon had just discovered, or did he already know it? The last few days are fuzzy for him, and he couldn’t remember much besides him meeting Benrey, Tommy, and Darnold. However, the orbs did seem to make Bubby panic a bit, his pupils constricting as he backed up slightly more from Benrey, who was now snarling at the other snake. So whatever those orbs were, they meant some serious stuff to the other snake. He would probably have to ask Tommy later what they had intended.

Benrey’s posture switched into a striking pose, possibly ready to tackle Bubby again. Luckily this attempt would be stopped by a long yellow snake tail wrapped around the black tail, pinning Benrey down to prevent him from leaping at the cobra.

“B-Benrey, please, calm down,” Tommy spoke, trying to get the annoyed snake to, in fact, calm down. Wich did not seem to work at first, earning a glare from the said snake and a tail flick, but said nothing. He knew fighting against Tommy was a mistake, especially with his pinned predicament, so he stayed still, his eyes staging on Bubby before Tommy had addressed Gordon.

“Mi-Mister Freeman, are you okay? I see t-that you’ve met Bubby, and B-Bubby doesn’t really like humans.”

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine,” Gordon replied, his throat stinging like hell as he spoke, causing him to chough a bit afterward.

“You too, Tommy?! Why the hell are all of you helping him?!” Bubby shouted, slithering a bit closer to the group before stopping when Benrey tried to wiggle himself in between him and Gordon, eyes then piercing holes through Bubby’s soul.

“B-Because he’s our friend Bubby! Mister F-Freman has done n-nothing to harm us. Hell, D-Darnold, and I had just saved him from bleeding out not that long ago!” Tommy replied, his tail keeping steady on Benrey as he felt him wiggle while keeping a close eye on him to make sure he would be calm enough to be let go. Despite the struggle from underneath Tommy’s tail, Benrey also chose to chime in on the Gordon support bandwagon as well. “and Gorman was with me for an entire day, if the little man did something to me, he wouldn’t be standing here.” That last statement from Benrey did not help Gordon’s fear with this whole situation at all.

Bubby let out a frustrated growl. He trusted Tommy and his words, but his stubbornness was too headstrong to admit defeat, or maybe it was his utter hatred for those Black Hounds that was fogging up the reasonable side of his thoughts. Whatever way, he refused to accept this human as a part of the jungle, more or less, to be friends with the guardians. Bright sparks of light flickered from the cobra’s claws as red flames burst and covered the scaled parts of his arm. Light blue vein-like markings appeared to spread down Bubby’s arms, and towards his chest, his eyes and gradient blue underhood illuminated his body as well. “Well. If you fuckers aren’t going to follow the simple fucking law of the jungle. Then I will!” Bubby roared before charging at Gordon. Benrey right near close to clawing Tommy off of him to get in front of Gordon, while Tommy was just about to tackle the rampaging snake. Before two mechanical arms wrapped around the angry snake’s torso, he lifted them into the air to stop his rampage, the fires in the cobra’s hands extinguishing almost immediately. 

“Hello, Hubby!” Cheered the owner of the mechanical arms, another elder snake, this time being a Green Tree Viper. Only with this one being a lot more human-made than the others he had seen before, the dented and almost rusted jointed arms were a big eye-catcher to the snake. Not to mention the spots on the tail where the scaled flesh had grown into other bionic parts of the tail, leading to a spiked tipped tail.

The sudden change in position made the hooded snake nearly yelp, his tail trashing a bit with his head trying to turn around to spot the snake behind him.

“H-Harold! Don’t grab me like that! And let me go! I need to take care of that stupid human!”

“What human?” Commer asked before tilting his head to spot the still in shock human behind the relived looking snakes. “Hello, Human!” Harold greeted the human, despite the angry huffs from the snake in his arms.

“Oh, h-howdy, Harold!” Gordon tried to respond, the burn once again causing him to cough some more.

“Oh, please, that’s what my hubby here calls me. Call me Coomer!”

“O-Oh, sorry, Coomer. I-I’m Gordon Freeman.”

“Well, hello, Gordon!” Coomer responded before looking back at the captured Bubby. “He doesn’t seem so bad, Hubby.”

“But he’s a human! He’s going to fuck everything up!” Bubby screamed, resuming his struggling.

“Look at him, Hubby! He’s so small, do you think he would do anything?” Coomer scoffed, squeezing the giant snake a bit tighter in his strong arms. “At least give Gordon a chance, he could prove himself to be a very valuable member to us.” A short pause before Coomer rested his head on Bubby’s shoulder, looking him directly in his eyes, green pupils meeting burning blue eyes. “At Least try for me, Hubby.”

Bubby stayed silent at that, the squeeze making him slow his struggling, tail going still on the ground below them. His stubbornness and hatred screamed at him to refuse his mate’s offer, break free, and end that pitiful excuse for a human in front of him. However, Harold always had a way to get him wrapped around his finger; he loved him dearly, the way he was able to be so loud yet so caring at the same time, just did something to his heart. Bubby couldn’t say no to him; no matter how much the burning passion side of him argued with him, Coomer was his poison, his lovely poison.

“...Fine. I’ll give Freeman a chance, but only one.” Bubby sighed, going entirely limp on Coomer’s arms as he rested his head on Coomer’s.

This agreement sent a massive wave of relief throughout the group. Tommy’s tail slid off Benrey’s, and the black mamba no longer leaked the periodic red and black orbs, while Gordon was still reeling from this entire new neat death experience. 

Once the two elder’s lovey-dovey session was over, Coomer set the brown cobra back down on the ground and slithered over to the human to get an official greeting. That’s when Gordon realized how small Coomer was compared to all the other snakes, possibly the smallest out of all of them. 

“I’m sorry for my mate’s rather harsh introduction. He’s not so fond of humans, as you saw.” Coomer apologies, motioning towards the burn scar on Gordon’s throat.

“I-It’s okay, Coomer.” Gordon coughed. It definitely was not okay, Gordon did not want to make the other snake upset as of now, he already had to deal with an angry snake that tried to kill him once today, H did not want to risk getting another mad at him.

Soon Darnold would join the clan outside, slipping out from the covered tree and slithering over to the team his look perplexed as he did not expect to see all the guardians here in one place at one time.

“Did I miss a summonin’ call or somethin’?” Darnold asked, slithering right up beside Tommy as he glanced around to the other guardians before his eyes landed on Gordon, spotting the very red burn scar on his throat. “Oh dang, that does not look good there, Gordon. Guess you need another stay at my tree for another healing potion. And it’s gettin’ late too, so you’re goin’ to possibly stay the night here to let your scar heal up.

Gordon, at this point, was once again just done with the day, even if he had been entirely out of it for most of it, both physically and mentally. So he just nodded and looked back at Darnold, a hand hovering over the stinging burn scar, the cold night air making it only slightly bearable if only stinging marginally more. “H-Honestly, yeah, going to need more time to rest, since Bubby here fucked up my throat.”

“so we’re gonna be having a sleepover, bro?” Benrey asked, looking down at the smaller mammal of the group, his eyes dilating slightly at the notion.

“If you’re all going to be stayin’ here, then yeah, I guess,” Darnold respond, looking around at the group. “My tree is free to anyone any time.”

“Y-you know I’m going to be staying here with you, love,” Tommy said, leaning against his mate, draping the end of his tail over Darnold’s tail, making the milk snake grin back, doing so again with his tail.

“Sounds fun! Let’s join them, Hubby, It’ll be like old times!” Coomer also chimed in, slithering back to his husband, who would honestly like to do anything besides that. Still, once again, his smaller yet more physically stronger husband was his only weakness. That did not mean he would not be a bitch about it, though.

“Like old times but with a whiney ass human.” Bubby scoffed before being punched in the arm by his metal snake partner.

“SLEEPOVER!” Benrey called out loudly, making Gordon and the rest around him flinch as he was the first to slither inside the tree, not waiting for anyone to catch up. Soon Coomer and Bubbly slithered in, leaving Darnold to follow right after. Tommy would follow, but Gordon stopped him directly before he could follow Darnold inside.

“Hey Tommy, I need to ask you something.” Gordon’s voice was still hoarse from the scar.

“Y-Yes Mister Freeman? What is-is it?”

“Back when Benrey was about to fight Bubby, these Black and red orbs came out of his mouth. Is that some sort of weird power he has or what?”

The mention of the words got Tommy’s attention, but the color coordination did cause his face to show some sort of worry.

“T-That’s Benrey’s, Sweet Voice. He uses it whenever he does his Sweet Dance. Helps him lul his opponents into a trance, while also being able to show his mood.” Tommy answers, the expression of worry still evident on his face, making Gordon start to feel a bit uneasy as well.

“And what do the colors mean?”

Tommy Paused for a bit, trying to remember the correct rhyme.

“Bitter Black to Crimson Red… Means I want you dead.”


	7. Always Watching

The tree was silent, the cries and calls of the wild creatures being aided by the jungle’s natural sounds outside of the twisted timbers being the only source of sound that broke through the silence. Tails were strewn about the potion maker’s lab, intertwined with other tails here and there, but mostly wrapped around tree branches, sturdy trunks, or each other. Tommy and Darnold had been curled up with each other on one of the higher places branches in the tree; their tails intertwined around the tree branch they were sleeping on. In comparison, the two elder snakes chose to simply be cuddled up in each other’s arms in the farthest corner of the room, away from the rest of the snakes. Then there’s Benrey, who had decided that sleeping in the healer’s tree stump cauldron, his tail slinked inside of the said potion-making bowl while his human half was hidden in the bottom.

This left Gordon tossing a turning in the hammock that he had woken back up when he was healed from his broken nose, now Gordon lays there, twisting and turning in the patchwork hammock as he struggled to get some sort of rest. His mind was racing at impossible speeds, filled with more questions than answers.

Those orbs and their meanings were the main buzz in his head. Gordon initially had simply brushed off the spheres as a sort of glowy addition to that weird hypnosis dance that Benrey first preformed for Gordon to calm him down when he got annoyed with the snake. Now they were different colors and had a meaning behind them, a rather violent purpose, but luckily not directed at him. Were there more combinations of those Sweet Voice colors? Are they all just as aggressive and angry as the black to red one? Could Benrey even control his Sweet voice?

Soon his thoughts slowly switched over from questioning the meaning behind this new power to Benrey’s protective actions. Why did he attack another Guardian, especially for him? Didn’t Bubby say something about his very being against a sort of law of this jungle? Why would Benrey go against that law just for him, to protect him? Even after all that teasing and mocking he’s done to him, making his journey harder than it should have been, why did he want to protect him? Those thoughts of Benrey going against the code of his home to keep him from being burned alive made his stomach do flips, something weirdly flattering about that action. 

Gordon first saw Benrey as a sort of terrifying jungle beast that was going to kill him at any moment. He was honestly terrified of the snake, but he never showed it, scared that he would strike if he showed any weakness besides annoyance and anger to the black snake.

Then he turned into an annoying sidekick that the human just so desperately wanted to get off of his back. The insults that Benrey kept spewing at him were constant jabs at his brain to spur him to shout or argue with the snake. The very presence of the serpent at the time made Gordon’s whole journey a sort of hell for him.

Now, Gordon didn’t know what to think of Benrey. He was not seen as some predatory beast that was toying with him like his prey anymore in his eyes or weirdly admirable companion that wanted to tag along for a fun ride, but as a sort of protector, someone that wanted to protect Gordon from the horrors of this jungle. It was something so significant and so endearing to the human, making him feel safe in Benrey’s presence, having a feeling of belonging with him, and that despite what the law of the jungle said about him, he was wanted by at least one snake in this horrific jungle. This fuzzy feeling was something that he has not felt since he got with his first romantic partner, making him feel, in a bizarre way, loved despite the circumstances. His heart could not get enough of that feeling, making him love that feeling, and very being that made him feel that way right back. That was such a strange feeling to Gordon; he couldn’t love Benrey, he had just been with him not that long ago, and didn’t he just threaten to eat him when they first met? Or was that another joke of his? He did let him sleep on his tail that one night, despite his fear for him. Now that he remembers, there was that feeling he was having trouble trying to figure out when Benrey let him sleep on him, was it an early crush for the snake?

He needed some fresh air, and he needed to get up and think about this on a not bed head. Slowly pushing himself up from the hanging hammock, he glanced around to the sleeping snakes, noting if any of them were genuinely sleeping or not. Using his upper body, he grabbed onto the cloth swing’s fabric as he slowly lowered himself down to the wooden floor below, keeping himself from colliding hard with the ground, so he did not wake up the rest of the sleeping snakes. Once making the softest landing known to man, Gordon slowly tiptoed his way across the tree, stopping in his tracks once he spots any form of shifting or movement from any of the sleeping snakes before continuing further out of the tree. 

Once Gordon had made it to the tree’s exit, he wiggled himself out from the covered entrance of the tree to the clear outside of the Jungle. However, once he was wholly outside, all the natural jungle noises and sounds that had aided Gordon’s sleepless night had suddenly silenced, no stubble changes, just straight silence. Even the wind had stopped blowing; everything was ultimately still like time had frozen in its tracks.

“What the-” Gordon muttered to himself before being interrupted by a reverberating echo from the jungle.

“Doctor Freeeemaaaan.” The echo called to Gordon, a dueling pair of teal glowing orbs appeared right in front of him, with two symmetrical lines snaking their way around the tree, circling the two infinitely as the rest of the body soon came into view. First a human torso came into view, much larger than the other snake he’s met, and the most well dressed out of them, their body covered in a well kept black tuxedo with a black suitcase being held in their right claws as well. The tail of that snake had stretched back into the lush jungle, disappearing into the said tail popping out of the jungle in intervals, circling the tree and the two with miles and miles of coils.

Gordon wanted to panic, tried to ask them who they were, and how they found him, probably because of the other guardians, but still. He found himself unable to do any of that, much less breathe normally, the human’s breathing became slow and shallow like he was breathing underwater. This sensation would have panicked Gordon to no end if he felt anything besides a null numbness everywhere in his body. It was a surprise how he was even able to stand at this point, like any small gust of wind could just blow him over at any moment.

“It’s….Nice to finally meet you. In the flesh.” The voice echoed around him, around the jungle. Something about the voice would not have sat right with Gordon, being so monotone and blank like Benrey’s, only with more power and more of an ethereal presence, but that would be if Gordon could feel anything at all.

The numbness had overpowered him, his eyes glazing over as he was simply stuck there, standing in one spot as he listened to the entity in front of him.

“I’ve been watching you for. Quite sometime now, Doctor Freeman. Seeing how you’ve barely escaped death time. And time again.” They continued as something slowly started to wrap around Gordon’s legs, and slowly around his waist. Gordon lazily glanced down to what was wrapped around him. A long black scaled tail, with continually shifting blue patterns along with it. If Gordon was at least half-conscious, he could conclude that this snake was not of any serpents he had seen before, and if there were a snake pattern that he had noticed, it would be quickly whisked away with a more alien one. That would be if he could make any cognitive thoughts besides the words this shifting entity implanted into his head.

“Your dependence on your feeble tools and trinkets is. Most adorable. Only to lose them and have to depend on the guardians of this jungle for guidance. And. Luckily. It looks like they had taken a liking to you despite you’re. Lacking survival skills.” The entity echoed, the tip of the endless tail coming up to fix Gordon’s lifeless gaze back onto them, not noting that he is a lot closer, the tail even now wrapping up to Gordon’s shoulders as the entity towered above him.

“And it looks like that two of the guardians have. Taken quite a liking to you. And one of them I love dearly. More than anything. The other.” They paused, breaking its gaze from the numb human to the sleeping tree behind them. “Is a story you do not need to know.”

The grip on Gordon slowly got tighter, squeezing him just so that he could feel his bones pop under pressure, no pain, no nothing, just numbness.

“Many before you had proven themselves to be. Troublesome individuals. Many of whom I had to take care of myself. Since. If you had paid attention to the Fire Starter’s rambling. Humans are not allowed here. Especially the ones that have the intent to. Destroy this home.” There was a tighter squeeze on the human, just to prove their point further.

The more massive serpents returned to Gordon’s glazed gaze. “So I hope you make the right choice Doctor Freeman. It would be a shame to have to end you like this.” The pressure on the poor human subsided as the tail soon unraveled itself from Gordon just as slow as it did coiling around him. The missing support caused him to fall forward and flat on his face in front of the giant snake, who was slowly vanishing into the jungle behind them.

“Until next time Doctor Freeman. Please do keep yourself from getting in danger. For your sake. And the others.” And with that, the serpent was gone. That left Gordon lying on the ground, his mind slowly reeling itself back from the unearthly interaction. His senses were the first to return, noting how sore his body felt from the constrictive grasp that strange guardian had on him. His bones were aching and screaming as his bodily functions working again to allow Gordon to flop over onto his back to see that the world had started spinning again. There was that gentle breeze that blew across the dense canopy above, with the chirps and yowls of the nocturnal animals in the night adding onto the breezy chorus.

Gordon had been laying there for fuck knows how long now, with more questions in his brain adding onto the list of those before, all asking, what the hell he had just seen? And more questions along those lines.

Luckily he did not have to question for long, as his brain started to fully process the world around him, he heard a not so far off voice call for him.

“gorman? what, what are you doing out here, idiot human? wanting to be eaten?” Asked the all too familiar black mamba as he approached the sprawled out human, looking down at him as his towering figure had blocked out the moonlight from the crescent moon.

Gordon tried to respond, but all that could come out was a muttered hum like he was just awakened from a deep sleep. Maybe his mind was not as fully awake as he thought.

The lack of verbal response made Benrey bend down closer to the limp human, brushing a few strands of Gordon’s brown locks away from his eyes so that the snake could get a better look at his eyes. The gentle touch making the human shudder a bit as his more dull eyes stared into Benrey’s shining golden ones. Were Benrey’s eyes always that captivating? Or was that just his wearied mind filling with those same feelings for the snake again?

Either way, those golden eyes would be filled with dread once he got a look at Gordon’s eyes, swearing lightly under his breath.

“did g-snake come and drag you out here to talk to you?” Came a straightforward question from Benrey as he maneuvered himself beside the slowly coming to Gordon.

All Gordon would be able to reply with is a simple “Uh-hu” to say yes. That was all Benrey needed to swear once again, possibly cussing out that same G-snake for snagging Gordon up.

“so, bro, we are gonna go somewhere real cool, just until you can start to feel your body again, okay?” Benrey informed, his muscular scaled arms gently scooping up the ragdoll human up. The simple movement making Gordon weakly squeak in surprise as his already tired body melted right into Benrey’s strong arms, allowing himself to be carried by the snake as they slithered off to where Benrey had in mind.

Where ever Gordon was being taken, he was not scared of anymore, not when Benrey was taking him there at least.


	8. The Glow Cave

The night was still young. A star-filled black sky hung over the lush trees’ dense canopy covering the sizeable serpentine guardian that slithered his way through the jungle’s underbrush. His passenger that was laying in his arms was a limp Gordon Freeman, his mind still fuzzy and groggy from a very recent run-in with the head guardian of the forest. So all Gordon could do was lay even in Benrey’s scaled arms as he took him to hell knows where.

Now Gordon would have been terrified with the knowledge of this giant serpent taking him far from the potion tree’s safety he was once sleeping in and to some unknown location, possibly to eat him finally. However, that was when Gordon was still wary of Benrey when he saw him as a genuine threat to his life. Now the human saw him more as a companion, yet capable of killing him whenever Benrey felt like it, but still putting some trust in the snake’s scaled hands. Maybe this is what it was like back when he first fell in love with his first partner all those years ago, a long-forgotten trust between lovers. Or maybe it was just his foggy brain blocking out any reasonable reactions that he may have to this predicament he found himself in.

Either way, Gordon would slowly start to move his body, first being able to slug his arms up and lightly grip on to Benrey’s biceps as he tried to situate himself better in the snake’s hold.

“looks like lil’ Gorman is done being a raggy noodle now. That’s good. Going to need those noodle arms to hold onto something.” Benrey replied as they reached their location, a large lake-like body of water that contained a large cave entrance within the cliffs’ walls that overlooked the jungle behind them. 

“can’t carry you while I swim in there, Gorman. Think you can hold onto my back while I take a swim swim?” Benrey asked, his grip slacking a bit on Gordon so that Gordon could get the hint to start moving.

“Y-Yeaaaah. I can, I think.” Gordon drawled, his brain finally letting him make full sentences besides mutters and moans as answers. Even his body was allowing him to move eventually, or at least letting him slowly pull himself up into a sitting position, with the help of Benrey starting to shift him onto his back.

While Gordon lightly wrapped his arms around the snake’s shoulders as he lowered himself into the water, leaving half of his torso out of the water so that Gordon could keep his head above the water. Gordon would complain to Benrey about getting him wet yet again and about the water’s chilly temperature, but his brain was the equivalent to chunky mashed potatoes, so he let himself drift gently along on top of the snake’s back.

“all aboard the s.s snake ship. we are about to depart.” Benrey cheered, his tail starting to swish in the water to propel himself slowly forward through the still water, tiny ripples forming around the snake’s exposed human half. 

The moonlit sky slowly faded from view as Gordon’s noodle boat passed through the waterlogged cave’s mouth, covered by the cave’s shaded darkness as Benrey swam past the thresh hold of the entrance. 

Gordon’s grip on the snake slowly tightened as the two floated down the cave’s canal, the darkness of the cave only adding onto Gordon’s growing anxiety. He had never been a fan of the dark or any sort of darkness at that. It’s always been some sort of strange fear for him, even when he’s been able to brave out the darkest of nights, he’s always had that underlying pit of dread in this stomach that he could not quite make out. Now being in a deepening dark cave was starting to plant that pit deeper into his body.

The giant snake had taken notice to the slightly trembling grip of the human on his back, his arms tightening just a bit around Benrey’s neck. Even in Gordon’s groggy state, he’s still able to convey just enough of a message for Benrey to decipher.

“we’re almost there, Gorman, don’t be falling overboard just yet,” Benrey spoke, his tail strokes speeding up a slight bit, not wanting Gordon to be anxious for much longer.

Freeman’s eyes only shut as Benrey sped up, not wanting to stare into the cave’s pitch-black void anymore when he could just see his darkness behind his eyelids. He was starting to not like this surprise Benrey was planning for him. Hell, even some of that earlier primal fear of being killed by the snake was slowly beginning to creep back, despite himself denying any of that when Benrey protected him from Bubby. Would Benrey really be trying to kill him now, after everything that they had been through? Was that all just a drawn-out act to get his guard down, to make him fall for him? No, no, it was not; it can’t be. Could it?

Gordon’s anxiety filling thoughts would soon be proven wrong as a soft dark blue glow illuminated past Gordon’s sealed eyes, making him flutter his eyes open to see what the glowing was all about.

“we’re here, Gorman.”

What met Gordon’s gaze was slow illuminating dots and veins that flowed through the cracks of the rocky walls that dipped into the now glowing pool of cave water and throughout the vast emptiness of the cave. Small dots of blue veins shined the brightest at scattered points on the walls, acting as natural strings of fairy lights throughout the cavern, only stopping as the strings of lights reached the cave’s ceiling. That was where the lines became droplets as they dripped down from the stalactites on the top of the cave, forming their own smaller icicle lights off the edges and tips of the current ceiling spikes. The soft glow of the array of lights illuminated the dim cave, revealing the dark eroded texture of the cavern, the winding river that made its way throughout the cave, and a raised rocky shore that was littered with pelts, blankets, and countless other strangely human supplies.

The human was in utter awe as he observed all of this happening in front of him, this had to be a dream, right? Then again, he was riding in the back of a giant human snake that was part of an even bigger clan of snake people. So maybe this was not a dream.

Gordon was just about to ask Benrey what this place was until he got a good look at the snake. A connecting system of markings was glowing all across Benrey’s body, resembling a sort of skeletal structure throughout his body, his human torso resembling his inner skeleton, with his arms and head resembling the same bony sections. Especially the tail, with the top part of his tail’s back that reached his spine with row after row of ribs connecting to the said spine pattern. 

The still simi-groggy brained man only stated at the markings on Benrey’s body, not even realizing when Benrey started to dive deeper into the pool before his head went under with him. Only then was when Gordon gasped for air before letting go of the sinking snake, leaving his still weak body struggling to keep his head afloat on top of the surface of the water.

He was about to call this a trap, let his mind curse him out about trusting this damn snake before he felt a giant claw on his back pushing him above the water, allowing him to lay on the surface like it was a sort of bed. The rest of the snake surfaced right next to him, while the est to the tail appeared in and out of the water in loops and intervals around him, like a sort of safety net for him incase he starters to flail again.

“relax, Gorman; you ain’t gonna sink. can feel your frail ass body getting all tight. have to be lose and all that so you can float and shit. can’t humans do that?” 

“Well, it’s kina of hard to do that when you just up and let me go in the water with no warning.” Gordon huffed, noting that he was somehow starting to get more movement and control with his body. Maybe it has something to do with this weird glow pool in a sort of self-made healing pool that Benrey made for him? Possibly, his body was slowly starting to relax as he felt Benrey’s other claw come up underneath him to help support his back.

It was rather lovely to the human, just being in the hands of a large protective snake human that kept him afloat in a giant cool pool of glowing water. It almost felt like a lucid dream to him, like none of this was even real, but it was, it very much was, he’s thought it already. 

Gordon did not even feel Benrey’s claws leave his back as his body finally went slack, allowing his eyes to close lightly as his head relaxed into the water, allowing the liquid to fill his ears and deafen him to the muffled sounds of the outside world. All that existed for him was his own body, and the body of Benrey that floated right next to him, a low vibration that rippled across the luminous water, possibly Benrey trying to talk to him that he couldn’t hear. It didn’t matter to Gordon now; he had finally felt bliss in what has felt in what was an eternity for him.

This bliss would last for some time, allowing his clothes to be thoroughly soaked in cold water as his oily skin started to prune up from the constant contact with water. Only when Gordon felt his world shift is when he would begin to make a fuss, whining as he felt himself be gently grabbed on both of his sides as he felt his liquid bed be stripped from him and replaced by the frigid air of the cave that he momentarily forgot that he was in before now.

Gordon shook his head a bit, flinging droplets of the previously glowing water around him as he attempted to empty his clogged ears to hear the muffled tone of Benrey’s voice.

“been in there for long enough, wet man, time to get your silly little body all dry and ready for sleepy time.” Is what Gordon heard before being dropped in a relatively soft pile of animal pelts and blankets. He was quick to spot a ragged towel out of the pile and wrap himself in it, squeezing out the most amount of water that he could get out of his clothes and hair, he was not completely dry by the end, but he was dry enough to not feel as cold anymore from when he first emerged from the pool.

Taking the towel off of him and throwing it away from the makeshift bed, he turned his attention to Benrey to see how far along he was in his own drying cyle. To his surprise, he got an eye full of one of the rarest sights that Gordon had ever seen from the snake, his helmet was off. Short, tangled, jet black hair covered his head as a tiny bit of hair hung right off the back of his head, almost to the length of a mullet but just a few centimeters short of being one. A clawed hand raked through his locks, raking out any knots and water spots before shaking his hair thoroughly before shaking any extra water out of his helmet before turning and putting it back on, covering his glorious hair.

Sadly for Gordon, he was not fast enough to snap out of his entranced gaze to avoid Benrey’s eyes, a small blush forming on his face as he looked around the cave to find a place to sleep and avoid seeing a growing smirk appear on the serpent’s face.

“aww, lil Gorman watching Benrey boy clean himself off?” Benrey jabbed, slithering closer to the flustered human who still refused to look at the incoming serpent. “like what you see, Gorman?”

“... Is there anywhere else I can sleep? I don’t want to take your uh, ‘bed’ here.” Gordon retorted, trying to avoid the topic of him liking the snake.

That did not seem to phase Benrey all that much, seeing how he was already starting to coil himself in his own bed, despite Gordon still sitting there. In fact, the serpent’s tail even wraps around Gordon’s waist, pulling him into the mass of tail that is Benrey.

“you can sleep here, with Benrey here, lil man. there’s enough room for both of us. Unless your, uh, a flightless birdman. too scared to sleep with the big ol snake.” Benrey joked, pulling Gordon closer to his human half through his coils as he let his grip slack on Gordon to see if he would flee or not. Seeing how he last reacted to being offered a sleeping spot on the snake, Benrey doubted that Gordon would refuse this offer.

“I-I’m not chicken! It’s just-” Gordon responded, trying to push himself up on the bumpy mass of coils before slipping and slumping down against Benrey’s human half, his back colliding with Benrey’s chest before slipping down to the clothed bedding below.

“just what?”

“Just… Nothing. Nothing Benrey. Brain is still messed up from earlier.” Gordon excused, keeping his front facing away from Benrey so he could hide his still growing redness on his face.

“aww, Gorman, come one. can’t just say something and leave me hanging like that. what did you call yourself? chicken? yeah, chicken. your chicken Gorman.” Benrey prodded further, a claw being placed on top of Gordon’s head, gently pulling back to try and make Gordon look up at Benrey to reveal his blush, only to be swatted away by an annoyed human hand.

“I said it was nothing, Benrey. Stop it.” Gordon’s voice was surprisingly stern, with a slight bit of anger, but still low enough to not have to scream at the snake for once.

To Gordon’s surprise, that managed to shut the snake up. He was expecting Benrey to push his luck with getting Gordon to confess further like he’s done on multiple other occasions just to annoy him for different reasons. Instead, he got silence, and a hovering hand above his head, deciding for itself what it wanted to do next.

Once Gordon felt the scaled claws make contact with his head, he was about to scream at Benrey to knock it off, until he felt the clawed hand slowly drag back through his hair, not forcing him to turn his head or anything, just gentle strokes. Was Benrey petting him? For real petting him like a cat? It was so strange, having Benrey of all creatures be the one to be so gentle with him like this.

The talons traveled down towards the human’s ponytail, just as carefully interlacing his digits with the hair there as well. The serpent’s claws’ free motions through Gordon’s mane started to lull him to sleep further. The gentle movements of the snake’s massive hands around his scalp sent waves of relaxation throughout the small human’s body. Having his hair be played with and stroked like it was some sort of animal’s fur was so nice to Gordon, just making him melt further into the bed below him.

“your hair is, so soft Gorman. stupid small little man gotta be all cute and soft like this.” Benrey mused, his claws continuing to comb through Gordon’s hair as the once fading blush returned once again at those words before Gordon started to feel himself drifting off fully once again. Under the cautious claws of the giant snake, and being surrounded by massive tubes of scales and flesh.

What a life this has become for Gordon Freeman.


	9. There They Come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--------------------------------------------------
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING FOR HEAVY VIOLENCE AND DISMEMBERMENT IN THIS CHAPTER
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------

The sound of chirping birds was what Gordon first heard when he woke up again, this time he was not on a soft, warm bed when he had first passed out in the dark glow cave that Benrey had dragged him to before now. So instead of waking up in that surprisingly comfortable nest in that quiet den next to that lovely snake man, he woke up laying on the cold morning grass of the same damn jungle he was still stuck in. Gordon’s body was ungodly sore, his body aching in his wrists and shoulders as if they had been crushed to pieces and pulled out of their socket. With a slow roll of his shoulders and twist of his wrist to confirm that they were indeed not broken, only sore.

Did Benrey drag him back out of the cave? He was soaking wet again, not to mention having mud skid marks on his back, possibly from being dragged through the jungle. But Benrey was big enough to carry him regularly and not have to pull his unconscious body out of the cave, like a rag doll. So it could not have been him that had dragged him out, nor could he have sleepwalked himself out of the waterlogged cave without drowning in that lake. 

Who, or what, had dragged him out of Benrey’s den? More or less found him in the first place?

Gordon would soon get his answer with a looming shadow over his awakening form, with many other blurry figures right behind them.

“Morning Sunshine.” The closest silhouette spoke, something hard roughly nudging at his side as he was forced to his feet, two other padded figures grabbing at his sore arms and yanking him upwards. That forced Gordon to stand on wobbly legs that could barely hold his own currently.

“Didn’t think we would find you in that snake’s cave of all places, more or less in one piece.” The figure said, as Gordon slowly started to realize who was speaking to him.

What stood in front of him was very much a surprise to Gordon, an actual human being with two legs was right in front of him, holding a dangerous-looking gun in muscular scared arms covered in camouflage-patterned armor. Their face was scarred to hell and back, a duel scratch scar over their left eyebrow and a much longer and deeper scar from the left side of their nose straight across their nose and face.

Who the hell was this guy? Must be a general of some sort? Or at the very least, a high ranking soldier.

It took Gordon a while to gather his bearings and thoughts before realizing something essential to this scenario.

“Wait… How did you find me? I-I didn’t get any sort of signal to contact Mesa or anything.” Gordon asked, leaving out the information of losing the majority of his Black Mesa authorized equipment to monkeys.  
“Tracking equipment. It was inserted into your body before you were dumped here.”

“What do you mean by inserted?” That was not a comforting phrase at all to hear, especially from Soldiers that had him at gunpoint.

“By just having a tracker be inserted into your busted body while you weren’t looking.”

Gordon wanted to ask how they could do that, but knowing how Black Mesa operated and his current early predicament, it’s best not to push unimportant matters further. So he would move onto his next question.

“Okay. Then you mind telling me who the hell you guys are and why you guys are even here in the first place?” Gordon asked, trying to pull his arms free from the two guards before being yanked back into their grip, hard.

The scarred soldier was silent for a bit; their cold gaze still set on the captured researcher like he was studying the man before speaking up.

"Forzen."

"...Forzen? Is that even a real name?" 

"Yes, it is."

“But...Wh-” Gordon would be cut off from his sentence by Forzen moving on from the topic of his name.

“Do you have the credentials?”

“The what?” Gordon once again questioned, having a slight idea on what they meant by his “credentials.”

“Your credentials. Notes. You're supposed to have them done today. You know the notes you were supposed to take while you were out here? Hit your head on the way out or something?”

Oh, yep, that definitely confirms Gordon’s suspicions, and it definitely did not help his deepening pit of dread in his stomach that had always been there, even before meeting Forzen. The last known location he remembered the notebook being was in the monkeys’ grasps that had stolen the notes, or at least the majority of the notes. Gordon also knew that if he were to tell the soldiers that the notes were missing, he would get the shit beaten out of him, and if they get the notes, hell knows what they would do to Benrey and his friends, probably capture them and fuck them up for all he knows. In his mind, after hearing all those vague stories and observing how the snakes had been nothing but, in some way, caring and saving his ass on several occasions. He won't let Black Mesa hurt the ones who had made this hell of a mission Mesa had put him in a lot more bearable, especially Benrey.

So with a short pause, Gordon gave his answer. "I… Don't have them."

"What?" Came a growl from Forzen, looking rather annoyed at the unfortunate researcher.

"I don't have it. I lost them a few nights back."

"Bullshit." The same soldier huffed before something hard rammed itself into Gordon's stomach, knocking whatever wind he had trapped inside of him out like a whoopie cushion. His knees were going slack again as he was let go by the guard holding him up to crash unceremoniously to the ground.

"What kind of researcher doesn't keep his notes on him? Did you even write anything, to begin with, dumbass?"

Gordon was still gasping from the impact from earlier, so he did not have much time to protect himself when a boot had made contact again with his chest, now an empty yelp escaped the survivor.

"Or are you just trying to cover the Guardians asses? Like a sort of guardian for guardians? Something stupid like that?" Forzen added, giving Gordon one more good bruising kick for good measure before placing a dirt-covered boot on the fallen researcher's head, pushing it some so he could get a good look at the wounded man's face.

Despite the beating Gordon had taken, he still had the energy and balls to glare the soldier dead in the eyes with the look of 'if I weren’t fucked up right now, I'd beat you through the ground in an instant.’ The tactic of beating Gordon down did not seem to deter him from his new cause at all.

That stare did not bother the hardened soldier at all, having had that stare bored into his soul countless times, along with worse glares. After a pause as he thought over his next action, Forzen simply pushed Gordon's face into the ground before pulling his foot off and replacing it with the end of his gun’s end.

"Listen here, you shit. We will give you one more day to get ANY sort of good notes on these damn guardians. And they have to be some damn good notes too. Or else-" there came a bone-chilling click from the other side of the gun’s barrel, causing the angry look in Gordon's eyes to fade out for a quick second. "Black Mesa will just send in another dumb science nerd down here to do your job. Understand?"

Gordon, slowly recovering from the click shock, did nothing, not even speaking to the threatening soldier as he just later there, staying still and silent in retaliation to the threats he was being given. Only for that gun to be shoved deeper into his temple caused him to wince in slight pain at the cold metal seeping into his skin.

"Do. You. Understand?" Forzen barked again, this time eliciting a slight nod from the beaten man. 

"Good." That seemed to satisfy the soldier, standing upright once again as he motioned for the other guards to fall back into the jungle further, making their way past the brush as Forzen started to walk off too, before turning back around to the injured human. "You have one day. Don't try to hide. I will find you, and you know what I will do." Forzen reminded, flashing his gun one last time before disappearing into the jungle with the rest of his squad, leaving the beaten man to lay there with his dread and fear.

Despite the bravado Gordon had set up in front of those damn soldiers, he was still very much terrified underneath that mask. However, it was not for his own well-being and safety; despite that being a tiny part of his fear, he was more so worried about the other snakes’ safety. Gordon knew all too well that Black Mesa would do anything to sink their claws into these jungle beasts, and seeing how Gordon was starting to fall behind on his previous duty of being a disposable note taker, they were going to be sending in the heavy artillery to take of this issue instead. As he's seen from the snake's mythical powers and abilities, with Benrey's strange hypnotic dance, to Bubby's destructive fire powers, to even Darnolds miracle healing powers, there could only be so much these snakes could do against man-made weapons that not even their abilities could save them from a good shot to the head.

That is what scared Gordon the most, the thought of the snakes being in danger thanks to him and his unpreparedness. If only he had even thought of making some sort of fake notes to have even remembered to give to Black Mesa instead of what he had done now. Like hell, Gordon was going to provide Mesa with his original notes in the first place, not after the hell he was put through and the beings that he had made relationships with along the way, he couldn't afford to fuck up now. He could not afford to lose Benrey, not after what he had done for him last night.

He had to move, even with his bruising body, he had to move first and foremost. He was a sitting wounded duck out here to any other predator if he just laid there. So despite his screaming and aching body, he slowly pushed himself up off the dirt ground, brushing off any remaining dirt flakes on him before shuffling off in the direction of where he assumed Darnold's tree might be. Only using the dense trees around him to lean against whenever he felt his body was starting to get in too much pain, and he had to break for a second.

His next thought was to get to the other snakes. If he could at least warn them of the impending danger of an incoming attack, then maybe he could come up with a plan with them to protect the jungle. With his insight on Black Mesa and the guardian's knowledge of the jungle, then maybe they had a chance against Black Mesa. But only time would tell. For now, he had to get to the tree. Hopefully, he wouldn't be too late.

It was a good long trudge before Gordon could slowly start to walk at least somewhat usually, the slow limp had gone in his stride as he was finally able to straighten his body up more, and having to rely less on the trees surrounding him. He could feel his torso and chest bruising up from those kicks; damn boot boy did a number on him. Luckily nothing felt broken or cracking inside of him, still hurt like hell though, so Gordon kept on trudging forward. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too long until he got to the tree. If he even knew where the tree was in the first place.

Gordon had been on the verge of passing out when Benrey carried him off to his glowing den, and he was barely able to even process his surroundings at that point, so he might as well have been walking in circles by this point. Gordon was still persistent; however, he kept walking, he refused to give up, despite him possibly walking into the jaws of death yet again, especially with the returning feeling of being watched coming back to him, but he quickly shoved that feeling off, just blaming his paranoia for that feeling.

Fortunately, Gordon would not have to venture any further; a voice had called out from the lush trees, causing Gordon to gnarly trip over his own weak feet. At first, he thought it was the boot boys coming back to give him another “reminder” about their little deal with them. Instead he was met with two all too familiar golden yellow eyes glancing back at him, reliving the human more than it should have.

“there you are, gorman! got lost again, didn’t cya? lil human man gotta stop getting lost in here, big benrey boy isn’t going to be around to save you.” Benrey chimed, fully slithering into view with the roughed up Gordon.

“wow, don’t look so good there, bud, you good? got messed up by monkeys again?” 

“Y-Yeah, in a way. Just. Let’s just get to the tree. I got something to tell you there with the others.” Gordon spoke, starting to walk away, only for a surge of pain to shoot from his chest to all across his body as he did, making him nearly stumble over his feet again. That kick to his chest may have actually broken something, whoops.

The sudden stumbling human immediately had the snake by his side, a large clawed hand grabbing at Gordon’s left forearm to pull him back, but only to keep him from stumbling forward. Gordon turned his head to see a very worried serpent looking back at him as he bent down to look Gordon in the eyes, his pupils constricted into worried slits.

“bro, you’re stumbling. you can tell me here, we can tell the others later.” Benrey spoke, his grip firm yet gentle on the human’s arm.

“Benrey, no. Look, we NEED to get to the tree. I can tell you there. We need to move now.” Gordon ordered, trying to yank his arm free from the serpent’s tightening grip.  
“gorman, come on. You won’t make it there on your weak man legs stumbling all over the place. You gotta tell me what happened to you, man. Please, for Benrey”

Gordon yanked again, his patience straining further with the idiotic snake’s now vice-like grasp, he could swear that Benrey could feel his bone with that grip of his. This was the part of Benrey that Gordon hated, his god awful stubbornness when he wanted something that he would not stop at anything to get what he wants, now it seems that it extends to the means of life or death in times like these.

“That doesn’t matter, Benrey! We need to get to the tree before-” Gordon paused as he spotted something on Benrey’s neck that he had never noticed before, or at least something more troublesome.

A bright red dot placed right on the side of his neck. Benrey did not have any red on him, at all; he was all blues and blacks with his reptilian side, and he doubted that he had any glowing red markings on him at all. Nor did Gordon have any red laser pointers or red light fixtures on his person as of now.

So this could only mean one thing…

Gordon’s eyes widened, immediately realizing what that little dot meant. “Benrey, move!” Gordon yelled, trying to pull Benrey to away from the dot, only for that to be futile, seeing how it resulted as an unmoved snake just tilting his head at the panicking human.

“What do you-?” Is all Benrey could say before a dart of pain planted itself into his neck, a bright pink fuzzy end, and white tube being the only indication of the pain, with two extra darts implanting themselves into his neck as well.

Benrey let out a screech of surprise, his claws being stripped from Gordon’s arms, his claws creating deep rips in the human’s arm, tearing through muscle and skin like it was bloody thin paper. That caused Gordon to also add to the storm of screams with his own, gripping his shredded arm, more red blood gushing from the new wounds as he stumbled backward from the thrashing snake.

The snake’s hand darted his hand up to his neck to tear the three needles from his neck to throw them away, turning his body around and around as his tail whipped around the ground below him. His black tongue rapidly flicked in and out of his mouth to try and spot the scent of the unknown assailants.

Surprisingly he couldn’t pin down where or who they were, what the hell shot him? It had to be those damn Black Mutts again. Did Gordon set him up after all this time? Acting all wounded and needy just for the snake to lower his defenses to get close to him, only to rip out his heart in the worse way possible by selling him out to the same mutts that put him here in the first place. Not to mention that Gordon was trying to get him to take him back to the tree, where the other guardians were, possibly an attempt to trap them as well. After everything he had done for him, all the care, all the love, was all for nothing. Why did he not learn after the last human he trusted like this, the last one to backstab him, both metaphorically and literally. 

No, it can’t be, Gordon was different; he had to be. He did not have any natural survival experience, seeing how Benrey had to save his sorry ass many times and how that damn G-Snake had basically spared Gordon. He had to be different; this time had to be different. How could it not?

Speaking of that last human, a sudden familiar scent was caught on his tongue, something sour and horrid, and it was coming from right behind him.

“Sup, Benrey.” The rough voice came from behind him before they shouted another command. “Net! Now!”

As the command was made, a large metal neat was thrown on top of the thrashing snake as he roared, his claws trying to tear through the substantial screen. He only managed to entangle himself further in it, his tail knotting up in the netting as he continued to scream obscenities at the human.

“bro, not cool! why the fuck are you back? i thought you fucked off!” Benrey screamed as he managed to get some of his fingers through the net. Slightly working to tear a few threads of tightly wound threads and thin metal, his consciousness starting to wane as his tail slowly went numb, not thrashing as hard anymore. Damn sleep darts were pretty damn strong, taking only three of those things to get the snake to start dozing off after a few seconds.

“For you, bro. Need you for Black Messa to experiment on or some shit. They’ve been looking at you and your friends for some time now. And thanks to this nerd here,” Forzen motioned toward the bleeding researcher, who was still trying to process what all was happening. “We were finally able to find you.”

Benrey’s enraged snarl slowly faded as he glanced over to the human he had spent the last few days bonding with, being replaced with the first-ever time Gordon had seen any form of hurt or emotional pain plastered on his face. It nearly physically hurt Gordon to see this, guilt starting to fill his head as he realized what he had done.

“...w….how?” Benrey asked, his voice is filled with surprise and that painful betrayal that he refused to admit before.

“We tracked him. Following him the whole time, even when we weren’t in the jungle. He led us to you, Benrey.” Frozen said, stepping closer to the wobbling snake who could only stare at Gordon, staring weary lasers of deception and, in some way, heartbreak at Gordon. “And now, with you, Black Mesa can finally gain control of this damn jungle, as well as the rest of your friends. And you have him to thank for this.” The soldier finished, reaching a hand out to place on the snake’s covered shoulder, who by now had entirely stopped struggling under the heavy net, only slowly glaring back at the soldier. A clawed hand came up and shakily grabbed at the hired gun’s hand, just to be shoved back and further into the net, falling back on his weak coils.

At this point, Benrey was too far gone to even fight back any more. That god damn human had tricked him, Gordon had tricked him. He should not have listened to his heart back when he first laid eyes on the human; he should have kept to the law, followed it like Bubby had, maybe even let the fiery bastard burn him alive back at the tree. Now, he could not take that back his trust for the betrayer, now all he could do is lay there as his world started to spin around him, focusing on the human who Benrey thought that would be the new change in his life, the one who he could feel for, to love for the first time.

But now that’s all out the window. Benrey’s first love ended up betraying him all thanks to his naivety of love, and now the jungle is going to burn thanks to him. So with his last bit of consciousness, he forced himself to stare at Gordon, his eyes dilating as the drugs of the sleep dart started to take effect, but still being filled with so much hurt and heartbreak. Right before he finally gave in to the sleep agent’s overbearing effects, he asked one last question to Gordon this time.

“Gordon…why?”

And then he was gone. His body was entirely going slack in the net as he fell unconscious. 

Frozen only stared down at the sleeping beast underneath him, lightly tapping the beast’s head to make sure they were genuinely asleep before turning to the other appearing soldiers.

“Alright, that’s enough of that. Alright, boys. Grab the net and drag him back to camp. I’ll call in a transport truck to transport the beast to-” Frozen commanded right before being cut off by a bloodied fist to his face.

“Don’t you fucking dare take him away, you bastards!” Gordon screamed, watching Forzen stumble backward from the shock of the sudden punch and onto his ass, just for the other soldiers to be right on top of Gordon. 

One grabbed Gordon’s bleeding arm again and twisted it behind his back, the stinging pain surging through his body as he then received a massive blow to the stomach from one of the boot boys. Then another to his back from the one that snagged his arm, causing him to fall forward and faceplant into the ground. Gordon quickly brought his hands up to the back of his head to protect that part of his body as the soldiers started unleashing a hail of kicks and stomps onto his body, possibly breaking more ribs and minor bones as he just took the attacks.

Gordon knew he fucked up, first unknowingly leading the damn hounds to Benrey, and now punching a jungle veteran in the face who was going to take away Benrey. He knew if he tried to fight back now, Gordon would be another body to Black Mesa’s massive body count, but he had to do SOMETHING to save Benrey. Gordon had to undo the devastating wrong he had done not to just the snake but also the entire well-being of the jungle, even if he was currently getting the shit beaten out of him.

After a bit of roughing up from the soldiers, the group’s lead finally got up, holding the side of his face as he glared back down at the scene before him.

“You wanna know something, bro? I was gonna let you go, go back to Black Mesa if you wanted. But you’re still hung up on this damn snake. Still putting up a fight that you know you cant win. Like some sort of idiot.” Forzon growled, motioning for the other soldiers to do something that Gordon couldn’t see. Only to be brought up to his knees again, a soldier on either side of him holding his right arm behind him as his scared up one was snagged by the approaching head soldier.

The soft click of s retractable knife brought Gordon’s newfound struggling to a halt, his eyes darting right to the silver rigid blade’s glint.

“But now you gotta pay, bro. Can’t have you going around alive after this, after trying to fuck this up now. But hey. Be thankful; you won’t have to worry about this shit anymore.” Forzen commented that right before sinking the knife deep within the researcher’s arm, underneath the snake caused scars on Gordon’s arm, tearing through tissue and muscle as he began to see away at the bone underneath.

Gordon could only scream bloody murder as his hand and part of his arm was being sawed away. He could not even struggle to get away, three soldiers holding his body and head still as he could only cry to the heavens with the sound of tearing flesh and grinding metal against bone.

Thankfully for Gordon, the team of marines was at least somewhat merciful to him, the knife cutting a semi-clean cut off of Gordon’s arm. The sawed-off appendage dropping unceremoniously to the ground as the guards beside and behind him shoved him back to the ground, leaving him to lay there with his vision blurring from the immense pain in his lower forearm that he was grabbing. All Gordon could see was his missing appendage in front of him, and Forzen's boot right beside it before the hand was kicked far away from the man. 

“Welp, you should have written your notes down then, huh? Anyways, See you, nerd. Have fun bleeding out in the jungle.” Came the muffled voice of that damn soldier before he stepped over Gordon’s twitching body.

“Drag him out, boys! Get him to base before the other beasts get here! Fresh blood attracts them; let’s go!” And off they went, the trough dragging the unconscious snake in a capture net away from Gordon, ass all he could do was watch as his old crush was pulled away from his sight.

Guess this was really it, bleeding out in the jungle in a puddle of his own blood. Guess this is what he deserved for betraying Benrey like this. He had led Black Mesa to the heart of the jungle all this time, even without him knowing; he should have known how far that hellish organization would go to get what they wanted. Now it was all his fault that Benrey was captured and was going to get fuck knows what done to him, all because of Gordon’s stupidity and negligence. In Gordon’s mind, maybe it was all for the best that he was bleeding out here; it’s what he deserved for betraying the guardian’s trust like this, plus he would avoid whatever punishment that the other guardians had for him for taking away one of their kin.

So for once, Gordon just laid there, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes as his guilt consumed him. This is how a traitor dies, alone, cold, and covered in a pool of your own blood, and that’s what he was, a traitor, to both Black Mesa and the Jungle.

Before he let himself fall into darkness, he observed the scenery around him. The lush green vegetation of the jungle being illuminated by small rays of the morning, or afternoon, sun. The various noises of the jungle that he had grown accustomed to over his time at the jungle filled his ears as he spotted something that he had not seen before in the wilderness.

Something yellow and long slithering towards him and a familiar voice was calling his name, almost sounding panicked before darkness encased his vision, his body falling into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also apologies I forgot to add a TLDR, I passed out before I wrote it.
> 
> Gordon wakes up in the jungle again. He had been found by a troop of hired marine soldiers that is lead by Forzen. The said troop interrogates Gordon about the mandatory notes he had to take, and since Gordon had lost them to the Monkeys, he gets the shit beaten out of him. Luckily Forzen spares him and allows Gordon to go, but on the condition, he has some sort of notes by the next day. Gordon goes off to try and find Darnold's tree, where the other guardians are at, only to be met halfway by Benrey who was looking for him. Gordon tries to get Benrey to come with him to the tree, but due to him being beaten just moments before, Benrey wants to know what happened and refuses to move. That results in Benrey getting sleep darted by hidden soldiers and getting a net thrown over him. In the process of being darted and captured, he accidentally injures Gordon with his thrashing. Forzen mocks Benrey and tells him that INTENTIONALLY Gordon had betrayed him, which was partly false, Gordon did not know he was being tracked. Benrey believes Forzen and thinks Gordon had betrayed him before he passes out.
> 
> As the troop is loading up Benrey, Gordon makes a last-ditch effort to save Benrey by punching Forzon in the face, that once again leads him to get bet up, and getting part of his arm cut off by Forzen. He gets left to bleed out in the Jungle and die, luckily another yellow-tailed guardian finds Gordon just before he passes out.


	10. Arguments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for this being so late. College has started again and I've been swamped in college work. So chapters will be MUCH shorter and slower coming out. Thank yall for being so patient with my slow writing arse.

A mumble of sounds is the first sensation Gordon could notice from his hazed brain. Everything around him was just static like numbness; everything tingled in his body, from his head to his feet to his hands, or the only one he could slightly feel. He thought the other hand was there did not feel there at all; the tingling stopped halfway down his forearm. His body especially refused to move; every twitch he tried to pull from his being only earned him nothing, not even a twinge of pain. Luckily he was able to open his eyes, even if his vision was blurred behind his cracked glasses.

The jungle’s bright sunlight filtered between the cracks of splintered bark, blinding Gordon again as they floated over his now squinting eyes. Managing to turn his head to the side, he slowly became more and more aware of his surroundings. For instance, realizing that he was once again laying in that same hammock that he was trying to sleep in the night before. The cradling fabric made it much more difficult for the human to push himself up into a sitting position, especially when he tried to use his still numb right hand, only to finally realize that it was not there anymore. Instead, when he turned his head to look at the stump, he saw it was tightly covered with red soaked bandages and leaves.

What the hell was this?

It took Gordon a bit for his foggy memory to catch up with him, remember the horrid betrayal that had happened before he had passed out, the seed of guilt sprouting in his stomach. He remembered just wanting to curl up and let himself bleed out on the jungle floor right then and there for beating Benrey's trust and allowing him to get carried away by those boot boys that had cut off his hand as a reminder of his backstab. Then the blurry image of the yellow noodle returned to Gordon as well, that had to have been Tommy, seeing how he was back at Darnold's tree healing up once again. Only instead of healing from a bleeding nose, he was stuck without a hand, a numbing sensation from whatever ever Darnold had rubbed on the wound, and that his hand had not magically grown back, unlike his fixed nose.

At this point, Gordon thought this is what he deserved, for everything he had done, letting Benrey get caught, betraying his trust like that, letting his feelings for the snake get the better of him, to even putting the entire jungle in danger. Gordon was a fucking idiot, and he knew it; he honestly wished Tommy had left him to bleed out back in the depth of the jungle, let some other hungry wild animals find him instead. Sadly, Gordon knew that Tommy wouldn't let him die like that, not after all that trust they put into a no-good human like him.

Speaking of Tommy, Gordon could hear the murmurs slowly breaking through his fading blood loss fog. Those sounds belonging to some distant voices that sounded angry, raised voices mashing in with each other into a mush of sounds. Gordon pushed himself up from the cloth hammock again, this time using his good arm to gently push himself into a sitting position. 

His clearing vision revealed a gathering of those same snakes that he had left last night to betray Benrey the previous night. They were all gathered around the center cauldron, tail tips trashing behind them as the heated argument continued, not noticing Gordon waking up.  
“The bastard cut his hand off!” Growled the blue snake of the group, “If he wanted to kill him, then he would have done it already!”

“B-But you’ve seen how Benrey has been acting around Gordon, and hi-his voice has been the color of yellow when Mister Freeman isn’t around! Y-Y-Yellow means Thinking Of That Lovely Fellow!” Tommy retorted back to the angry cobra. 

“I do have to agree with Bubby here, Tommy. Do you remember what that last human that he got close to him? He was probably trying to lure him into a false sense of security so that he could kill him.” Commer added, his tone surprisingly calmer than the rest of the snakes at the makeshift meeting.

Tommy was silent at that notion. Yes, he did remember what happened to Benrey and THAT human, and how they not only backstabbed Benrey and Tommy as well. He knew all too well how it felt to be betrayed like that, but never to the literal extent that Benrey went through.

“That still doesn’t make sense on why he left him there. It’s not like him to just up and leave a fresh kill like that, or at least from what I know of him.” Darnold added, trying his best to support his now uncomfortable looking mate.

“Well, there couldn’t be anyone else there, could it?! You said it yourself, Tommy, the only scent where Gordon was his and Benrey’s. There nothing else in the jungle that could have scared him off!” Bubby argued, Coomer gripping his partner’s arm so that he did not try to start another firefight with the other guardians.

“Tommy’s scent may have scared him off, not wanting Tommy to see him killing Gordon, so he left his kill there to hopefully die before Tommy got to it,” Coomer replied. “Besides, Benrey will certainly be back for Gordon at this poi-”

“He’s not coming back.” Another voice intercepted Coomer’s rambling, all of the serpents turning with wide-eyed expressions to see Gordon lowering himself to the ground, his only hand gripping onto the patchwork sheet as he tried to steady himself on the trunk ground below him.

“M-Mister Freeman! A-Are you feeling okay?” The yellow python asked before being interrupted by the more vocal snake in the room.

“Took you long enough! What the hell do you mean not coming back?”

Gordon paused, looking down at his now shoeless feet. “...He’s not coming back because he got captured by Black Mesa.”

There was silence for only a moment; everyone was still shocked by Gordon managing to wake up, and this sudden twist of events.

That was until Bubby spoke up once again to break the silence.

"What the hell do you mean, Black Mesa captured him?!"

"I mean that they knocked him out and dragged him away in a net! How else do you think they took him?" Gordon snapped back, his grip tightening further in the hammock behind him.

"H-How did they capture him, Mister Freeman?" Tommy asked his voice, surprisingly, far calmer than the angered cobra.

There was once again a pause. He knew he was in the thick of it now. The other guardians were all angry at the fake notion that Benrey was the one to have cut off his left hand despite knowing that he had every right to murder Gordon at this point. The other serpents cared about him so much, except for Bubby, of course, who may still hate him or, at the very least, tolerate him. Why did they even act as they cared for a betrayer like him? Gordon knew if he told them what happened with Benrey and the boot boys, he would surely be done for. If Benrey was not going to be the one to kill him, then the other Guardians were. 

And by this point, with Gordon having unknowingly betrayed his crush so severely that he’s probably gone for good, and that he had been left to die with a missing hand by the very organization that had put him in this position in the first place, he was ready to basically die at this point even if it was at the hands of the serpents that he had just met not too long ago.

Tommy's worried voice once again broke through Gordon's thoughts too. "M-Mister Freeman-?"

"It was my fault, okay?!" Gordon yelled, causing everyone to flinch at the sudden shout.

"It was my fault Benrey got taken away! They found me in Benrey’s glowy, cave, den thing by some tracker they put into me without me knowing, and managed to drag me out of there. They wanted some stupid fuckin notes that those apes tore up when I was chasing them, and when I didn’t give it to them, they ended up beating me up some before leaving.”

Gordon took a ragged breath as he tried to recollect his thoughts again, his constant rambling habit coming in handy right about now. Not even allowing the snakes to intervene before going off once again on the second part of his explanation.

“I tried to make it back here, to where you guys were so I could like, try and tell you what happened and get your help. But Benrey ended up catching up to me instead. He saw how fucked up I had gotten from the boot boys and tried to get me to tell him what was wrong. I WAS going to tell him what happened once we were moving towards the tree. But he wouldn’t move at all. I tried to get him to move, to get him Then…”

Yet another pause, this time tears of regret started to swell at the corners of his eyes, but still holding it together in front of the shocked crew of snakes.

"... The boot boys found us. The fuckers were following me that entire time. I had no idea they were there until I saw three or five; I don't know how many fucking sleep darts were shit into Benrey. He managed to cut my arm really badly when he tried to attack the boot boys, but they managed to get him down. And fucking trust me. I tried to save him, I really did. Managed to punch this guy named Forzen in the face before he…" Gordon looked down at his slightly throbbing stump of a hand. "You know… They then took Benrey away as they left me there to die. And now we're here."

The human let his words sink in, reaching his hand up to his face to try and wipe away the tears that were still in the corners of his eyes. Why was he this upset over his betrayal? Shouldn't he deserve what's coming to him? Was it all just fear? Or was it finally telling someone about the fresh hell he had gone through? Whatever the reason, he would be met with silence, everyone processing what Gordon has just spewed onto them. His mind screaming at him that it was

"So the Black Mutts planned all of this then?" Bubby asked, still staring right through Gordon like he always had; however, this time, he seemed to have a tinge of what we're very subtle signs of empathy, only masked by his usual bitterness.

"I-I guess? I don't know. Just. All I know is that I lead them right to Benrey, and now he's fucking captured."

"Then how is it your fault when you said you had no idea that they were trackin’ you?" Darnold replied, slithering closer to the shaking human. “You didn’t even get a fightin’ chance against them. And by the looks of it, they didn’t seem like they were going to let you live either way.”

“Y-Yeah, you got fucked up by Black Mesa, just like the rest of us,” Added Tommy as he too slid closer to the now confused Gordon.

“But how the hell did Benrey not find their scent? We can smell those fucks coming from Dead Home." Bubby growled, still not entirely trusting Gordon's words.

This time Cooker chimed in, slithering right next to his partner to grab his arm and give him a reassuring squeeze with his hand. "Those Black Mesa mutts are learning! So they may have found some way to mask their scent with something in the jungle so Benrey couldn't smell them! Like mud or-"

"I think we get it, Coomer, thank you." Darnold stopped the green elder before he went on another one of his rambles. "An I doubt Gordon would be able to catch their scent with his human smellin' powers."

Gordon had nothing to say here. Why were they being so nice to him? After getting Benrey captured by Black Mesa, basically betraying him. He should have known they would do that; he should have done better. Why are they making excuses for him? Shouldn’t he be doing that? Should it be him who's begging for forgiveness and not the ones who he had betrayed?

“W-Why? Why are you guys so chill with me betraying Benrey?” Gordon asked, his legs slowly getting more strength in them to straighten out. His brain is still refusing to accept the truth about what happened to Benrey, screaming at him about his fabled betrayal.

“M-Mister Freeman, p-p-please listen to me. You didn’t betray him.” Tommy responded, his voice turning rather stern and almost annoyed. “Y-You got fucked up by Black Messa as well. You had no idea that they would attack you, Mister Freeman. You got hurt by them as well.”

“Bu-”

"D-Don't start that f-fucking shit with me, Mister Freeman!" Tommy shouted, causing Gordon to flinch back a bit, his mouth shutting immediately at the shout and the loud thump of his tail

“D-D-Don’t pull this self-pity shit! T-This is currently about B-Benrey. Yes, y-you got fucked-ed up by Black Messa, and no, it wasn’t your fault. But this shouldn’t be about you, Gordon. We need to focus on Benrey now. So please, cut this self-pity shit and focus on getting Benrey back.”

Another silence swept over the group, everyone stunned by the sudden outburst from the more timid natured Tommy. He had rarely let his anger or annoyance take over him, only in moments of great stress or when he needed to make his points clear when he wanted it to be. This was one of those stressful times, he just wanted to get his adopted brother back, and he was not going to take any shit anymore.

“So put that shit away and help us. Give us an idea of what we can do. We need your help now, Gordon.”

Gordon was stunned as well; the roar of logic had bashed into him like a wrecking ball to a fragile glass wall. It was not his fault; he wasn’t the reason that Benrey got captured. What those bootboys had said was bullshit, and they know it, Gordon knows it too. Then why was he feeling pity for himself? Why was he crying for something that could still be possibly fixed? He’s Gordon Fucking Freeman, and he’s not going to feel sorry for himself anymore. Despite now missing an entire hand.

So using his free hand to rub at his watery eyes, he looked back at Tommy and the rest who were now staring back at him, waiting for his response.

“Your right Tommy. Shit’s done, no more of that sorry shit.” Gordon replied, his stance becoming more solid and strong as he looked back to the group. 

“Now we have to get Benrey back. And I have a plan... I think.”


	11. Plan Of Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \------------------------------------
> 
> SPOILER FOR CHARACTER DEATH
> 
> \------------------------------------

The plan to get Benrey back was simple, right? Just go in, get snag Benrey back from Black Mesa, then come home, right? Not exactly. For one, no one knew where the mutts had taken Benrey; all they had to go off of was a slight indent in the ground from where Benrey was dragged before being lifted and dragged off. As well as a weak scent train that was close to vanishing by the time Gordon and the serpent team had reached the kidnapping site. Along with the darkening night sky, this was not going to be a straightforward rescue mission.

Luckily for the crew, Bubby was able to catch onto the weak scent, with Commer helping if he ever lost the trail. After a long journey from Darnold’s tree to the Dead Home, It would not take long for the team to catch onto a new scent or multiple scents in this case. The sound of voices and footsteps cause the unit to hide behind a nearby rock formation. Gordon glanced around the corner to see that same group of soldiers standing guard around a broken down building, the same guards that had left Gordon for dead before. There were a few other scientists that were crouched around a lumpy net, taking samples from the very much still knocked out snake guardian. They were very likely waiting for some sort of transport to take Benrey away, but why was it taking so long? I had to be hours since Gordon had woken up from his blood loss, right? Were they waiting for them? Was this a trap? Gordon did not entirely trust this.

“S-So, how are we going to attack Mister Freeman?” asked Tommy as he peeked over the edge of the rocks as well.

“Well, we can’t just go in guns blazing without any guns. Doubt the potions that Darnold has given us would do any good against bullets.” Gordon remarked, noting the various arsenal of weapons that the bootboys had on their persons. “I also doubt that any of you guys have any experience with firing a gun anyways.”

“We’ve seen the mutts use trees and other animals here as target practice,” Bubby remarked, with Coomer joining in on spying on the team and their captured comrade. “Beyond that, were shit out of luck.”

Gordon cursed under his breath. Of course, they didn’t have the gun experience; they were more than likely on the receiving end of a barrel of a gun anyways. So Gordon had to be sneaky about this. Maybe he could pickpocket a gun off one of the guards patrolling the group when they turned their back to the team. But he would probably be a death wish since he was missing a hand, and if any of the snakes tried, they might be easily spotted because of their size.

“If I get you guys a gun, could you possibly be able to use it?”

All the snakes seemed to agree; verbally agree with Gordon on that notion.

“But how are you going to get a gun, Mister freeman?” Asked Coomer as he and the other snakes sunk behind the rocks to hide again from the patrolling soldier.

“I’m going to get them. If I can just get one of those bootboys to-”  
Suddenly, the sound of approaching footsteps approached the group, everyone quickly shutting up as the source of the sound grew louder with the crunching of the ground underneath. Shit, did a guard hear the team talking and come over to investigate? There was not an alarm that had gone off about them being here. Luckily it sounded like it was just one soldier coming, possibly mistaking the murmured voices as jungle sounds and coming to see what it was. The crew stayed silent, snake eyes narrowed into slits as they listened to the steps coming closer, and Gordon readying himself to jump on the attack as well if need be.

Once the unsuspecting guard rounded the corner of the stone pillar, they were met with the sight of numerous snakes staring right back at them. The soldier just about dropped the gun they were holding before a large yellow tail wrapped around the guard’s body, yanking them behind the boulder to keep them from screaming out for help as their air was squeezed out of them like a squirt bottle.

A portion of the tail covered the head of the muffled human, surprisingly quickie silencing them as they slowly started to stop squirming underneath the crushing weight of the snake’s tail. Thankfully Tommy was more of a constrictor; Gordon did NOT want to see what a bucket’s worth of venom could do to a human body. Once the body had gone limp, the tail loosened its grip from its new stress toy, letting it plop unceremoniously in the group’s huddle.

“..Nevermind then,” Gordon replied, reaching down to the fresh corpse to begin to loot the body for any useful weapons.

Surprisingly there were just enough for the team, two handheld guns, one for Bubby and one for Coomer, somehow able to hold the weapons correctly. A revolver for Tommy, and a shotgun for Gordon.

Looking over to the two elders, they seemed to be catching on to how they use the weapons quickly, only needing Gordon to flip the safety off and tell them not to fire or point them at any of the teammates. Tommy was still looking somewhat hesitant at the small gun in his claws, looking it over some before holding it out, not catching onto Gordon’s crash course in gun safety as he pointed it right at the spooked human. 

“Hey! Watch where you’re pointing that!” Gordon yelped, Quickly ducking out of the way of the barrel of the gun. Tommy quickly pointed said gun away from the human as they glanced back up the giant beast. 

“Tommy, do you know how to even work a gun?”

“I-I think so, Mister F-Freeman,” Tommy replied simply, glancing back at the smaller human.

Despite Gordon’s deep trust in the serpents, seeing how some of them had saved him countless times, he did not entirely feel that Tommy nor the other snakes had a good hold on the sudden introduction to the new and more human weapons. But this had to be learned, and fast, Gordon knew that the crew would not last long against artillery fire, even if they have some otherworldly powers. There’s only so far those powers can protect them from certain death.

“Why do we have to use these cold metal shooters again?” Bubby asked, snapping Gordon out of his anxious thoughts. “I can just burn the fuckers alive and get this shit over with.”

“Do you want to get filled with Bullets?” Gordon responded, glancing back at Bubby. “Bullets move faster than spreading fire, so you would probably get shot before starting a flame. You could also hurt Benrey if you burn the bootboys.” 

Usually, Bubby would bark back at Gordon for arguing against his unique fire powers, but the gentle grip from his partner to his arm brought him back down a bit from his anger high. Gordon did have a point; there were points where he’s had close calls with Black Mesa hunters and bullets, even having some old wounds from those said shots. Maybe he should not argue with the human that was about to lead them into battle.

“Just- whatever, we need to get closer to them, we can use the dead trees as a cover to get closer to them.” Gordon had informed, peering out from behind the stone motioning at the trees with his free hand. “All we need to do is wait to take the first sho-”

There came a loud bang from beside the crew, spooking all of them as they jumped right out of their skins. Everyone’s head whipped around to see Tommy pointing the gun at a nearby tree, a bullet sized hole was made in the bark of the tree, and the sound of shouting soldiers were heard as the sound of returned fire sounded.

“Tommy!- Urg! Fuck it, no time for practice now, just aim and fire at the soldiers! Go go go!” Gordon shouted, pumping his shotgun and leaning out of the cover of their stone shield, firing at a soldier that he luckily hit before firing again.

The rest of the crew followed suit, firing back at the soldiers, surprisingly hitting all, if not most, of their targets. Whenever the snakes had run out of ammo, they quickly searched the soldier's body for new ammo to reload the new weapons. Now Gordon had given the promptu crash course on gun safety and firing, but he never had truly gone over how to reload a gun. So with a bit of struggling when it came to reloading each of their guns, with cover fire from Gordon and any of the still firing serpents.

Soon the numbers of enemy soldiers had diminished enough for the team to make their advances, Gordon ordering the snakes to advance forward, popping out from behind the rock to begin their advance. The remaining ammo from their guns had been emptied into the soldiers before them, now missing more targets as the soldiers started to retreat backwards towards the frightened scientists that had almost abandoned the still sleeping snake if it was not for the soldiers protecting them from the fire.

All while the snakes seemingly had almost no trouble taking care of the soldiers, taking them out one by one with their new weapons of mass destruction. Especially with Tommy, the one who Gordon had assumed would give the most trouble with this sudden new gun, be he was landing all of his shots, and if he managed to miss some of the shots, he would have hit another soldier. This was a complete shock to the human, caught off guard by the natural trigger finger.

“Tommy go ham! Tommy’s go fucking ham!” Gordon cheered, blasting another soldier in the chest as he returned fire.

“I-It’s all instinct M-Mister Freeman!” Tommy shouted, a large splatter of blood from a nearby soldier’s collapsing head splashing onto his face, causing him to drop his gun in the process. 

Looks like it was time to bring out the big guns, the ammo was already depleted completely by this point, leaving only a couple of bullets in each gun. This left the snakes with their own tails, claws and power to dispose of the last remaining guards.

Coomer dropped his empty gun as soon as his gun started clicking from the lack of bullets. “It’s time to punch their lights out!”

“Way ahead of you!” Bubby chimed in, disposing of his feeble metal bullet launcher and igniting his fists with red flames “Lets burn these bitches!”

Off to the races the snakes went, fighting guns with fire, claws, and punches. Tommy quickly disposed of some of the soldiers with his crushing tail and dagger-like claws that ripped through human flesh like it was a hot knife through bleeding butter. While Coomer was fruitfully punching soldiers with his Black Mesa replaced arms, thrashing the human meat sacks right into the fire that his partner had ignited, burning boot boys that got too close to him, or when he got too close to them.

Gordon in the meantime could only stare at the carnage before him. Looks like the guns did not matter that much in the end, did they? Or maybe they did help in diminishing the soldier’s numbers so that the snake team could go for a more physical means of attack than having to rely on new weaponry. Thankfully this was about to be over with, the piles and pieces of dead soldier corpses was what Gordon had noticed first as he started to come down from his adrenaline filled run, trying to see if they had managed to take out Forzen during the whole fight. As Gordon observed the bodies, making his way closer to Benrey’s still unconscious body, he could not decipher if he saw Forzen’s corpse or not. Did they kill him already? Gordon hoped the hell they did.

His rain of thought ended when he felt something hard slam against his head and back, knocking him down to the ground almost immediately. Gordon did try to use his now empty gun to swing back at the unknown attacker, but ended up with his only good hand being kicked at, letting go of his weapon at the impact before being brought back up to his knees in a choke hold.

"Why didn't you stay dead?" Asked the all too familiar voice of Forzen, who was slowly crushing his windpipe as he braced a leg down on the back of Gordon's knees, keeling him down as he tried to call back out for the snake's attention, to sadly no such luck

"You should have bled out back there when I gave you your final warning. But you didn't. And I'm guessing it's from them." Forzen spoke as he glanced back up to the snakes as they were finishing off the last of the soldiers.

"And now my whole platoon if fucking dead because of you and your shit. Guess this is what I get for getting what I came for before I got my 'friend' back. Guess you found your revenge huh? For you missing hand there?" The grip around Gordon's neck got tighter as Forzen went on, his vision starting to blur out from panic and the lack of air getting to his brain.

"Guess it's not worth it in the end huh? Had your fun, and now your paying the pri-"

"M-Mister Freeman! Are you-?``said Tommy as he turned to face where he smelled Freeman's scent. Despite having blood covering his face, he could still see past the dripping liquid coating his eyes, and he saw his "old friend" about to choke his human friend to death.

"What are you doing to him?!" Tommy yelled, venom present in his voice as he quickly slithered his way towards the two. 

The rest of the serpents take clear notice to the sudden distressed yell of their fellow guardian, and him rushing over to save Gordon from a leftover soldier. 

"Get off him!" Coomer yelled, joining his burning snake mate to go and slay that one last guard.

That was before Forzen had quickly whipped out a handgun, pressing the said gun to Gordon's temple, causing the protecting snakes to skid to a stop, knowing full well what that gesture had meant.

"Didn't think that you guys would be the ones to finally get the balls to trust another human being again. More so you Tommy." Forzen scoffed, turning his gaze towards a pissed off, and worried Tommy. "Didn't think you would want to trust one after what happened, what your brother had let happen."

"Th-That was YOUR fault F-Forzen! Benrey tried to give you a chance, we all did. But you fucked it up right after we started to trust you."

"And yet you fell for it." Forzen spat back, pressing the gun further onto Gordon's head. "Fell for it again. Look at what this one has done. Got your brother captured because of-"

"IT WASNT HIS FUCKING F-FAULT! STOP USING YOUR FUCKING BACKWARDS L-LOGIC SHIT TO PIN IT ON HIM!" Tommy howled back, wanting to straight up snatch Gordon out of the traitor's grasp and eviscerate the soldier right then and there, but he knew that moving any closer would only threaten Gordon's well being even more. "W-We know what you fucking did. To all of us. T-To Mister Freeman. And you can't run f-from us anymore. You can't outrun the shit you've caused."

There was a pause, a painful, silent pause as the standoff between the snakes and Forzen with his captive all stared at each other. No one daring to move to initiate the other side from pulling something drastic, despite the subtle shifting of a net from behind the two humans. 

Only the click of the glock of Forzen's gun broke the quiet tension, leaving everyone to dread what was about to happen.

"I know. But I might as well take out one last member of this team." Forzen spoke, his voice monotone as he was about to pull the trigger, ending another man's life as Gordon's world started to slip into slow motion, the last few seconds of his life flashing before his eyes.

The sight of the snake team lunging for him in a vain attempt to save whatever seconds of life he had left, the cold barrel of the gun being pressed harder into his head, the screaming thoughts that had erupted from his brain in these last crucial moments. This was how it was going to end? By a bullet to the head, not by crushing, burning, or even being poisoned by snake venom, just an old fashioned bullet. Despite everything that had happened to him, he didn't even go out in style.or even had the chance to say goodbye to the team, Joshie, or his old friends. Worst of all, he never got to apologise or tell Benrey how he really felt. All that Benrey knew was how Gordon 'betrayed' him, or at least the fake notion of betrayal Forzen had given to him. So he would die a regretful man, a man who couldn't do anything to stop his fate.

Or that would have been said if there wasn't a sudden scream of pain from the soldier as they dropped the loaded gun from Gordon's head, and had let him go in the process, causing him to fall on his front as he tried to catch his breath from the vice hold on his throat. Once he got his bearings again, he forced himself back onto his feet and turned around to see what the snakes were staring wide eyes at.

It was Benrey, who was holding the soldier by the scruff of his neck, or more so by the back of his throat, black claws digging into the bone of his neck. His golden eyes burning with a raging fire of hatred and anger from the squirming soldier.

"hello old friend." Benrey hissed back, his tail coping around himself, creating a sort of surrounding pool of scaled muscle. His expression that was once the equivalent to an unconscious drunk frat boy at a college party, now changed to a glare that could mutilate the soldier in his grasp from sheer anger alone.

"Oh, your up. Sup friend" Forzen coldly spoke, his body going limp as he glanced back up the the beast.

"looks like ya fucked up, didn't chya? fucked up big time. you fucked up bad. lost your pack and everything huh? you messed with my friends, and lost yours. and now you're going to die." Benrey hissed his voice, even with his monotone speech pattern, still had a low gutteral anger that could only be created by a post drugged up animal that was loose from its cage.

"Wha-?" Forzen peeped before a long black scaled muscle wrapped around his head and shoulders, slowly squeezing the head portion of the scaled wrap. Benrey did not want to spend anymore time on this waste of space of a flesh bag. His anger and hatred for this soldier was so deep and had rooted itself deep within his very being, being formed from betrayal and hurt from what his old friend had done to him. He tried to be good, he tried to be the good guy, he wanted to be nice to him, to Gordon, but they made him be bad, so he might as well be bad.

The tail slowly crushed Forzen's head, leaving him to try and struggle in the confines of the tight muscle, trying to push or maneuver his body out of the coils, but with no such luck. Even if he was trying to say something to Benrey, it would have been muffled, and surprisingly, it was not any pleas for mercy or forgiveness, but probably some last minute words to scold the snake. Not like he cared however, Forzen was dead to him, both figuratively and now physically, since with just enough pressure from Benrey's tail, there came a squelching crunch sound from underneath the tight ropes of snake tail, dark stains of red liquid dripping from in-between and underneath the head holding part of the tail. And when Benrey let go of the corpse, letting it collapse to the bloodied earth below before smacking it away with his tail, it was not a pretty sight either. What was noticeable of the soldiers smashed skull had looked like a deflated piniata leaking gorey treats.

Gordon would have been relieved by this, happy to see the Black Mesa soldier that had cut off his hand being taken care of by his snake crush. If it was not for the fact of the events that happened prior to this meeting, with Benrey's last memories of Gordon being that he had falsely betrayed his trust. As well as seeing how he had quickly taken care of the last human who had betrayed him, and the same anger filled stare that he had for Forzen now being directed onto him, only this one having a much more prevailing feeling of hurt. 

Gordon was downright terrified.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Black Jungle Remixed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432342) by [doctor_bitchface_phd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_bitchface_phd/pseuds/doctor_bitchface_phd)




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